


etoile

by Naolin



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Mommy Issues, Romance, Slow Burn, Some Very Fleeting Plot, Some Very Fleeting Violence, as Slow Burn as a oneshot can be anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25564510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naolin/pseuds/Naolin
Summary: Ezreal thinks it's good to follow your instincts. And today, his instincts draw him to her.
Relationships: Ezreal/Sona Buvelle
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	etoile

**Author's Note:**

> Some Notes to start us off!
> 
> 1: Official lore timeline places Sona at the same age as Ezreal and Lux, but… *gently pushes this piece of canon off the table like a fussy cat* Riot can't fool me. Sona is a milf.
> 
> 2: TBH Ezlux is really the only ship I have for him where I don't view him as, (while still sincerely in love), being in the middle of working out some deeply-rooted mommy issues. Or daddy issues. I don't discriminate. 
> 
> Anyway if that's not your jam, you probably shouldn't read this.
> 
> 3: I read that Sona is officially, FINALLY, on the list of champions to rework the lore for. Good! Her current lore is… Like, all guess-work on how to integrate old lore into the new world. Anyway, that announcement gave me the motivation to finish this, because everything it assumes might get retconned, HA...

Ezreal is not used to being seen as a child.

He remembers being ten years old, drawing across the hallway walls with a marker. The marks are still there today, though faded with time. This does not make him regret it.

There is a sense of pointlessness to something that culminated only in a smudge stain on the wall. A mark as small as the gaps in his memory about _why_ he had made it in the first place. But he does not like to think of fleeting things as a waste of time. He does not like to think that permanence is all that matters.

Nothing is permanent. No one is. In the ruins he finds tomes and texts and artifacts. Armor and weapons and art. Things that mattered so much to someone once, surely. Things that whole lives — generations, even — were dedicated to. Now they sit on his shelf, and there is no guarantee that a single one of his guesses about their intents will ever hit the mark.

Archaeology is all just guess work, really. Ezreal understands the importance of cross-referencing your information and he understands the need for consulting specialists in any given field, but at the same time… There is a certainty they always carry that he doesn't much care for. Or maybe that's just their ego, their stubborn refusal to see him as an equal. He thinks this is probably less because of his age and more because of his attitude. They don't like the cold way he looks at things, the easy way he dismisses ideas instead of attaching his identity to a theory and then defending it to the grave.

Reality is not flexible, but perceptions of it are. He hates how stubbornly specialists cling to their first guesses, even when it goes against the evidence.

Maybe he is just not used to authority. His mother and father were — well, they were a lot of things, but never particularly authoritative. Even now they are hard to think of, impossible to speak of.

Both were wonderful and kind and loving.

Both were so severely independent that he had become the same long before they were gone.

Ezreal remembers drawing on the walls, something that had once seemed imperative in his young mind. He remembers his case worker visiting to talk to his uncle about finances and caretakers and other awful things that Ezreal had aggressively tuned out. She had scolded him for it, but he had ignored her until she was gone, until it was just him and his uncle at the dinner table, with empty chairs to either side of them.

His uncle had told him: “Do what you want. Technically, you own the place.”

At ten years old, Ezreal had thought this was the natural conclusion. At fifteen, Ezreal had thought back on this as yet another example of an unacceptably irresponsible attitude. His resentment of those empty chairs and of his uncle's every fault had fueled his journey to Shurima.

Now he is eighteen, and has come full circle — he looks back on his uncle's complete failure to parent responsibly with fondness and amusement.

What's wrong with writing on the walls? What's wrong with doing what feels important in the moment? To do otherwise would be to spit in the face of the ideals his parents died for and died from.

There is nothing wrong with living impulsively, with living recklessly.

Sometimes this means sneaking into collapsing ruins, past ropes and warning signs. Sometimes this means venturing to a place you're told doesn't exist, stirring up the dust of the dead and heeding no warnings. Sometimes this means climbing rock walls with inadequate gear and getting into places you're not sure you can get back out of.

Sometimes this means breaking into a concert venue to hear a show.

Not all art is tangible, after all. Ezreal considers himself an appreciator of the arts. Most of those arts are ancient pottery, architecture, weapons, or otherwise enchanted trinkets. But music is nice, too.

Maybe he's just desperate for a trace of his mother. Three years ago he wouldn't have been able to articulate the thought, let alone entertain it. But now the impulse seems easy to trace, almost like he is examining himself from a distance. Drawing conclusions from evidence. If archeology is the study of people of the past, this can extend to himself, too.  
  
Ezreal has never been to Ionia. He knows that his mother was born and raised there before moving to Piltover and meeting his father. He has never given much thought to that side of his heritage. He still does not think it means much to him, personally. It's hard to think blood matters so much when your family is dead.

But he is starting to forget the sound of her voice.

Her portraits are still hanging all around his house; He doesn't think he'll ever forget the deep oaky color of her hair or the way it was always so mussed that even paid artists could not gloss over it and paint it tidy without the result looking nothing like her.

He won't forget resting his head on her lap, her fingers running through his hair. Just like he won't forget his father, won't forget his scruffy face, or playing made-up games of math and sport, together in the forests.

His mother used to read to him. Bedtime stories at first, then novels and history books at his request. At his bedside, in the living room during the day, on walks home from school. And when she wasn't reading to him, she used to hum ceaselessly.

He would like to replace that lost sound with something.

Sona Buvelle is Ionian, from what he gathers. He knows that she has traveled from Demacia to perform, and quick interrogations of scowling upper class assholes over the last week have told him that she has resided there since she was a child. Adopted from an Ionian orphanage. (He wonders what happened to her parents, just like he wonders what happened to his.)

The concert hall sprawls on for an eternity. This only means that the staff is stretched thin, and sneaking in is not terribly difficult. Ezreal climbs to the rooftop of another building in the neighborhood, and from there it's a simple set. Run and jump and — alright, sometimes he needs a little magic to make it. But you would have to be a fool not to use all the tools at your disposal.

He has to pick the lock to the stairwell. Has to press himself up against the walls in the shadows, holding his breath until the staff and crew have vanished from sight. He knows he would stick out terribly from these stuffy old rich types who actually bought tickets, so he'll have to stay hidden.

He was right to come early. It takes time to sneak around, and he gets lost more than once.

He finds the stage before the show starts. Ezreal finally settles on the perfect hiding spot, the perfect viewpoint. A metal grate that hangs overhead the stage to hold the lights on its underside. It is deeply shadowed, high in the ceiling — and with the chandeliers hanging from it, anyone who looks his way will be too blinded to spot him.

Ezreal had never thought much about what goes into a concert, and watches the set-up with interest. Black-uniformed staff toy with the lights and curtains. Someone is doing a quick run through the seating aisles, making sure nothing looks out of place for the guests that Ezreal can hear chattering just beyond the large arched doors. Crew members are calling questions and affirmations back and forth.

And then, on the stage, Sona Buvelle.

Ezreal recognizes her from her portrait in the journals. From posters hung up around town. (If he likes her music, he thinks he will steal one for himself. He likes to consider this a modern-day excavation.)

He lays down on his stomach and rests his head on his arms, peeking over the edge of the grate.

Her hair is long, he can tell, but tied up in a bun, with careful loose curls falling around the nape of her neck and over her shoulders. Her dress is deep blue, form-fitting, but with a flowing translucent duster over her shoulders. The cut of her neckline is dangerously low, Ezreal observes, or maybe it's just his fortunate angle. Still, that isn't what he expected from someone appealing to no-doubt prudish nobles.

She is beautiful, but Ezreal supposes this is common enough in older women. There's a certain attractiveness that comes with maturity. (He has always liked people older than him. There's a higher chance they'll be able to keep up with his brain when it runs fifty miles a minute.)

Her instrument is unlike anything he has ever seen before. In art or in writing. Ezreal has seen harps and he has seen sitars, but the design of hers is different. It is golden and ornate, intricate carvings curling all across it. It looks heavy, but seems to float at the gentle guidance from Sona's fingertips.

But surely that's a trick of the angle. Maybe some form of hextech for performers.

She lives in Demacia. There are no mages in Demacia.

Sona stands front and center, watching the staff set up, silent.

Her interpreter is a handsome young man, dressed in a nice suit, with his dark hair combed back. His voice is loud and clear when he repeats what she has signed to the staff, and there is some sort of smugness about him that Ezreal does not like.

They do not have many questions for Sona. They do not, Ezreal notices, seem to know who to look at when they do. Mostly they speak to each other.

There is a hush that falls over the hall when she tests the sounds. Her fingers slide over the strings, pulling and releasing to a short rhythm. Even Ezreal's breath catches. The sound of it is smoother than he had expected. But this is no soft thing. The sound is piercing, a sharp and fluid flow from note to note. It's perfect.

Perfect — and fleeting. Then the staff are bursting back into motion, calling for their final adjustments, last call before the guests are allowed in.

Sona's hands draw back from her instrument. She hesitates to leave it behind, but her interpreter leads her back stage with a bold hand on her arm, and it isn't long before the guests are pouring in through the door. They fill into the seats with an awful cacophony of overlaying conversations, stark contrast to the silence and music of a moment ago.

Piltover's elite. They wear their high fashions that seem more burdensome to sit down in than it's worth, and they whisper to each other in such a flurry that Ezreal worries their chatter will give him a headache and ruin this whole thing for him. (He wonders if she leaves her etwahl on stage before playing everywhere, or just in this city. The people here are uniquely fascinated with objects. With tools, and how they work. Maybe she just knows how to play to her audience.)

In time, the conversations die into whispers. There is scattered applause as Sona crosses the stage to settle before her instrument. The theater is all gold paint and ruby-red curtains in the dim light, but even so, her unassuming figure stands out.

Sona raises her hand, and for a moment, against all logic, Ezreal thinks she is waving up at him — until she uses it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Then she tilts her head, looks up at him with a smile, and nods.

There is no way, Ezreal tells himself, that she could have seen him. The lights shine down onto her from just beneath him — she should have been blinded by them. Perhaps she was nodding as some kind of cue.

He isn't able to think about it for long. He is as captivated as the rest of the audience in the hall as her hands come down on the harp strings.

Ezreal watches the way her fingers shift from one string to the next, seamless and practiced. It does not look, or feel, or sound like a progression of notes. It is like one sound, one continuous, shifting sound. It is nostalgic, not because he has ever heard anything like it before, but for the story of the song. Nostalgic and lonely, in a confusing and conflicting mix. It revels in it, accepts itself as it is.

The metal grate is far from comfortable, but Ezreal is sure he could doze off to a song like this if he is not careful. He wants to close his eyes to bask in it, wants to cut off all his other senses so that nothing is left but the harp, telling him this wordless story of growing up alone. He keeps his eyes open. He likes watching her fingers, narrow and pretty, their movement as entrancing as any dancer.

The first song is long, almost endless. Its finale comes slow and with a gentle warning — the notes growing longer and slower, the story fading off, fading out. Yet when it ends, Ezreal still feels startled. Whatever arc the song went through, whatever journey it conveyed, there was not a proper ending. It simply stopped being told.

Well, he reasons with himself, he could be completely off base with his reading. Even if he is not, who says stories ever end? The narrative of a story and its context can be altered entirely with only a simple shift of the lines around where you start and stop.

It is not an Ionian song. The composition does not strike him as particularly foreign. Then again, he is far from an expert. It is not Demacian, either, this he is more sure of. It's impossible to avoid their hostile takeover of culture. He knows the rhythms they favor. (But at least Demacians push anthems instead of war songs. It is not much to be grateful for, but it is something.)

Sona's next song is so wildly different from the last that Ezreal half expects critics to start grumbling. They would be stupid to, of course. It is still full of beauty and skill, still worth hearing and respecting. But he cannot discern the meaning. Like the plays written for long-lost cultures, like the stories written in long-lost languages, Ezreal cannot follow these songs. He can't find her emotions in the sound. He does not know the moral of the story.

Sona's head is bowed as she plays. Ezreal stares down the nape of her neck, shining with sweat under the heat of the light. Her skin is flushed and rosy. There are audible gasps from the shadowed seats as she reaches a crescendo, then the pure silence of a hundred breaths caught and lost in awe.

She plays for nearly two hours straight. Ezreal joins in on the standing ovation, hardly caring if he gets caught. He's already seen the show — what can they do? Kick him out?

He thinks he sees her turn to look his way one last time. Even if she sees movement, he rationalizes, there's no way she would be able to make him out through the dark and light.

Still.

 _Still_.

He raises his hand and waves back down to her.

***

It isn't hard to sneak into her changing room, now that he's got a better grasp of the layout.

Not that he's hoping to see anything risqué — it's just... He doesn't know what. He doesn't have an excuse this time, he doesn't have a goal or a reason or some deep existential motivation to justify himself.

Ezreal thinks it is good to follow your instincts. And today his instincts draw him to her.

Sona has already changed, and stays seated in front of a large vanity as he enters. She does not turn around or even startle as she watches him through the reflection. She does not look angry, does not even look surprised.

Ezreal closes the door behind him.

She is as beautiful as he'd thought from a distance. Maybe more so. Up close he can see that she is older than he had guessed, but if Ezreal is being honest, he likes this. He has never much liked people his own age. People at all, a part of him points out, but he ignores it. At any rate, he would much rather socialize with a mature beauty than any of the boys or girls he's tried running with in the past.

“Nice show,” Ezreal says, belatedly realizing just how unprepared he is for this encounter. He feels at a loss for words, acutely aware that for once he does not have an explanation for why he is somewhere he shouldn't be.

Sona smiles and nods, the curls of her hair bowing with the motion, then bouncing back. Her dress now is more form-fitting than the one she had worn on stage, but less ornately embroidered. The flush has faded from her shoulders and cheeks, but he sees the skin along her collarbone glisten, still wet from being wiped clean with a damp towel.

Ezreal's eyes drop down to where her hands are raised over her chest, signing something to him.

“Uh,” Ezreal says, because he does not know sign language. The woman quickly realizes her mistake — or at least, Ezreal thinks so, until she turns around to face him directly instead of communicating through the mirror, and repeats the same motions. He snorts, turning his head away like he could hide the laugh.

Her lips purse delicately, and a finger comes to rest at her chin in thought. These motions seem exaggerated, but Ezreal supposes body language needs to be louder when it doesn't come with the words. She exhales, then points to him, and with a smooth swoop of her wrist, up to the ceiling.

“There's no way you could see me,” Ezreal says, incredulous.

She nods her agreement, then pauses to consider how to communicate what she wants to tell him next. She gestures up, then to him, then to her own body.

Ezreal is lost, and just shrugs at her, helplessly.

She bows her head with a soft smile, gaze flitting down in an apology that Ezreal really thinks should be coming from him instead. Her hand reaches out to the side, brushes up against the edge of her etwahl like a child seeking comfort in a mother's hand.

“The first song was an original, right?” Ezreal asks, deciding it is better to brush past the awkwardness. Sona's lips curl up, and Ezreal finds himself struggling to look away from the glossy pink of her lipstick. He looks at the wall instead. “But then the rest weren't written by you. I don't know much about music, so were those like famous pieces? Or do you just have people who write music for you?”

Ezreal's cheeks feel warm, but he has to tear his gaze away from the wall to look back to her. Mute, he reminds himself, feeling stupid. Right.

Sona looks startled, but holds up two fingers.

“The latter?” Ezreal guesses.

Sona nods, looking pleased, if not somewhat amused. She must be at least thirty. There is no way she does not see him as some silly child who rushed into something he clearly knows nothing about. She isn't necessarily wrong.

But if she wanted him gone, she could make it happen. There is no trace of fear or anger at his intrusion. She could throw something if she needed to make sound to call for help. He's sure even a loud discordant sound from her instrument could bring attention. No, maybe she sees him as too much of a threat to risk it? He doesn't like that thought, but feels comforted when she leans forward, elbows on her lap, encouraging the conversation.

Sona places a hand at her chin, then slants it forward. Ezreal frowns, and leans back against the door. He watches her try another route — pointing at herself, then cradling an imaginary infant in her arms.

“Your... Daughter?” Ezreal guesses. He supposes if she had a child young, they might be old enough to write decent music. If they were a prodigy.

This time Sona is the one to laugh, shoulders shaking as she covers her mouth with her hand and shakes her head. She draws an M in the air, her fingertip easy to follow for one latter.

"Your mom."

Sona looks pleased. She draws in the air again, this time with both fingers, starting in the center, parting, and coming together again in the point of a heart. Somehow it is the sentiment more than the motion that strike Ezreal as childish. A woman her age going out of her way to assert that she loves her mother.

He manages to keep himself from blurting out, _my mom's dead,_ but still marvels that he had the idiotic impulse at all. He normally does not care much for holding back on things that make others feel awkward. Revels in their discomfort, even. But that's still a bit much, and regardless, he doesn't _want_ to make her uncomfortable. Maybe he is too aware he is already bothering her, forcing her to talk to him without her words.

Then again, something about this makes him feel that she doesn't mind. Like they are both being strange, and that makes it alright.

“I came to see the show for my mom,” he says instead. It conveys enough, and he sees Sona's expression soften in sympathy. He is not one for apologies, but runs a hand through his hair, knowing it is mussed and not caring for now. “Ugh, that's not... Sorry, that's weird.”

Across the room, Sona rises, and shakes her head gently. She crosses the room to stand in front of him. She is only slightly taller, but still leans forward slightly as she reaches out towards his face. Ezreal's heart stutters in his chest with a frozen moment of uncertainty.

She fixes his hair.

He exhales, face burning.

Sona's hand slides down his face to cup his cheek. Her palm is soft, but her fingers calloused. Her skin is warm. She leans forward and presses a light kiss to his forehead.

She really is strange, too.

“I'm — eighteen,” Ezreal blurts out, but the scowl doesn't come, his usual indignation won't rise to the call.

Sona draws back with a delicately arched eyebrow and the corner of her lips quirked up.

He leans his head back in exasperation with himself, lets it knock against the door, and does not even bother trying to explain himself.

Sona considers this. Nods as if she understands, and steps back from him. When he has overcome his embarrassment enough to face her, she tilts her head to the side slowly, the smile still on her face. She points to herself, eyebrows rising up, questioning.

 _How old am I?_ She is asking, Ezreal is sure of it. “I don't know,” he says, figuring it's about time he accidentally offends her. “Like thirty?”

She glances away, swaying a bit, leaning away and humming. Ezreal almost startles at the sound. He likes it — not just that it is as melodious as the rest of her, but that she is still enjoying this game. _Close_.

“Thirty five,” Ezreal guesses, and Sona leans back the other way: _no_. “Up or down?”

She points down.

“Thirty four,” Ezreal tries. She flicks him in the forehead, a punishment for just counting down instead of really guessing. A kiss and a flick, Ezreal thinks, and snickers as he rubs at his forehead, messing up his bangs again and surely sporting a red mark. “Thirty two.”

Sona claps lightly, then spreads her palms as if to reveal the victory prize with a wry smile: _nothing_.

“For the record, I liked your piece more than the others.” Ezreal pauses. He is not used to clarifying, not used to caring how people take the things he says. “Uh, but they were all good.”

Sona gives a dramatic, playful bow. Dangerous, given the neckline of her dress that is just as low as her performance outfit's had been. She looks up at him before rising, catching his wandering gaze — and smirks.

His heart stutters again, but this time his brain stutters with it. He's sure she is only teasing him. Eighteen years old is only a way of saying _I'm an adult_ to even younger children. To her, he wonders if it was as good as saying _I'm a child._

The indignation still won't come. His blush does, though, stubborn and against his will. He feels the heat on his cheeks and on his ears.

“I want to talk more,” he says, once again feeling foolish for his own earnest words.

Sona's expression falters. Ezreal could believe almost all of this has been an act, has been the public image of a bored celebrity caught in a good mood. But the way her lips tighten into a thin line and the helpless look in her eyes as she looks at him is sincere. She does not shake her head, but Ezreal imagines the uncomfortable way she turns to face away is just as much a _no_.

“How long are you in Piltover?”

Her body has gone brittle. She has been expressive up until now — maybe not open, but relaxed. She looks resigned when she faces him again, and holds up four fingers.

But she answered. Ezreal clarifies, “Days?”

She nods, slow and cautious.

“When are you coming back?”

She shakes her head. Ezreal gets the impression that she does not know, rather than that she is not.

“I bet I can learn at least basic sign language in a couple of months,” Ezreal says, because it is true. Before Sona can fuss, he adds, “Well, I doubt you're coming back so soon, anyway, so I'll have more time.”

As expected, she is fretting with her hands in the air, a look of utter bafflement on her face.

“Oh,” Ezreal says, an after-thought. “I'm Ezreal. By the way.”

She is smiling now, like she cannot help it. Even as she squints, brow furrowed like she is trying to figure him out for the first time today.

Sona's shoulders relax, then slump. She looks at him kindly, but suddenly seems incredibly weary. Her smile strikes him as hollow when she nods, and the way her eyes meet his, then flicker away seems less engaged than only a moment ago.

She retreats to the vanity, pulling parchment out, and writes something down. Ezreal wonders why this didn't occur to him earlier, but is glad it had not. It feels cheap, somehow. Even when she hands him the parchment, even when her slender fingers brush over his, he cannot quite enjoy it. Communication shouldn't always be made into a game, but it was a fun first impression.

His eyes scan the writing.

Ezreal takes back everything he said about it being cheap. This parchment is _everything_.

It has a mailing address in Demacia.

But she looks at him like she has lost faith in something, like he has let her down in asking for more than just this short game. She thinks he isn't going to write. She thinks he isn't going to learn. It's a frustration at what she must assume is a fleeting interest that will fade the moment she's out of sight.

Ezreal tends to take things like that as a challenge.

***

Their first letters are stilted and awkward, but there is an overwhelming sense of awe in reading her thoughts so clearly. He almost hadn't thought she would write. Not some noble woman, not a famous artist — to _him_. His only claim to being anything more than a street kid is his family name, and he's still not certain he's living up to it as much as he pretends he has.

Status may not mean shit to him, but it's rare to meet a noble who agrees. _The parties are dreadful,_ she writes. _But mother enjoys them. I have heard that in Piltover there are technology exhibits. Are they as tiring?_

The both of them write like they are copying from templates, vaguely impersonal and still uncertain of what to say. Even so, Ezreal is grateful. She had not been able to talk before — or rather, he had not been able to hear her. Now he can, and she does not hide behind polite facades. No — Sona uses polite language to say impolite things, but there is no deception in this.

Over a year, they have slow-motion conversations.

They no longer answer each question the other asks like some kind of interview. They no longer ask each other much at all. They just write freely, without the concerns of keeping conversation interesting for both parties holding them back from saying what they mean.

Sona writes: _I sometimes write lyrics in my mind, but I never intend for anyone to sing them. I imagine that if someone did, I would be furious. The words aren't meant to be sung over top the music I write, but transformed into it. It's incomplete work. An outline. Dreadful to have anyone see what you're not finished with yet, to see what you're not prepared to show. I have tried to explain this process to Mother; the way words become notes not in syllables but in evocation, but she only smiles and nods to humor me, and hides her laughter behind her hand. She is the only person I've ever met that I would happily show incomplete works to, whose laughter at them brings me joy and not shame._

Ezreal reads these words again and again and marvels at the different ways that different minds think. He thinks of Sona's relationship with her mother with fondness and awe. And a yearning that manages not to outweigh them.

He writes: _I saw an exhibit for a hextech hover-board the other day. Like something for transportation, I guess. I know you're probably not big on this idea, but so much tech just seems to me like people without magic wanting to do what mages can. Which isn't unreasonable, but seeing stuff in its prototype stages makes me think "why not just get a mage to enchant it?" We have mages here, you know? And we grow up getting to hone our magic, so it's not so unreliable. It's not like I don't like tech, but... Anyway my point is that the guy doing the demonstration wouldn't even let me try it out for myself. Stingy…_

Penning letters to Sona makes his heart race, makes him stupidly giddy. He has to pace his room when he thinks of what to write — he spends nights in a row, lying awake, thinking of himself as a concept and of how to convey it to her. He spends even more nights thinking about her as a personification of her words.

The desire to leave a good impression fades, the script-like nature of call and response disappears. Why write to someone if you are not going to write about what matters to you? Why read someone's letters if you are not enthralled by the purity of what they chose to write about?

The difference of thirteen months is striking, when Ezreal compares.

Their first letters are short. _I hope you've been well,_ and other stock phrases, scattered among short anecdotes that are too fearful of being _too much_ to be anything at all. She indulges his letters the way one indulges a child, skirting around depth, unsure of how long his preoccupation with her will last.

But she kept writing back. For every letter he sent, he got one back.

Her latest letter is eight pages long — two pages longer than the last one he sent. Her language is as flowery as it began, but now she airs out her petty annoyances with Demacian nobles, with conductors and interpreters, and sometimes rambles about music in ways he doesn't understand one bit. She writes about the latest news in Demacia — a moving statue outside the city, a death-threat on her doorstep, an escaped convict, and an exiled soldier. She asks about Ezreal's latest expeditions, about his findings and his theories.

He isn't used to feeling so pleased in his own home. Usually that is reserved for death-defying jumps in dangerous ruins, but now a satisfaction washes over him, even in this hollow shell of a house that he's tried to stuff full of trinkets. They never worked to stave off the feeling of emptiness, but these letters do the trick.

Ezreal carefully illustrates the hand-motions he has been studying in the margins of the page, drawing arrows and question marks around them. At the bottom of the page, he tries to sketch out the path he'd followed in a distant cavern, and a pretty flower that had bloomed at its depth. (Had it not been the only one there, he would have dried and pressed it to send her, like he has a dozen others.)

Writing her letters does not feel like a trap-laden dungeon. Or what he imagines those feel like to people who don't visit them for fun, anyway. It has started to feel natural. He does not think anything of the way he begins to end his letters with _I wish I could see you again._

But he thinks a whole lot about how she does not comment on it, whether to indulge or deny or humor him.

He finishes decorating the empty borders of his parchment, making sure to fill every open space with doodles or words. His letters are messier than hers, always, but sometimes she writes musical bars on the backs without comment, as if she had forgotten about them.

He re-reads her latest letter for the dozenth time. For the first time, he processes more than her flowing cursive and how endearing her garden dispute with her neighbor is, and finds himself up on his feet before he realizes.

 _Death threats on her doorstep_ , said as casually as vines wandering over the fence.

***

Ezreal avoids Demacia like the plague, normally. There is not much to draw him there, and he isn't particularly attracted to denying the magic in his blood as if it's something shameful. It's all he has left, and to feel the petricite walls sap it away from him is dully infuriating.

Sometimes Ezreal wonders whether the magic came from his mother or his father. He wonders if — if they had been around as he got older, would they have taught him to use it? Could the three of them have sat together at home, thumbing over strange enchantments and picking them apart like a family game night?

Not that it matters anymore.

So Ezreal avoids Demacia like the plague — but the truth is, he's lovesick, so it's already too late to fear that. And the truth is, a normal person doesn't drop details about the death threats they've been getting so casually. It's hard _not_ to worry. It's hard _not_ to go absolutely _crazy_ with worry, when your regular speed of communication is weeks and weeks apart. Sometimes longer, when he is away from home.

There is nothing wrong with living impulsively. Sometimes that means following the path your parents took to die and coming back better than empty handed, but not with what you'd hoped to find. Sometimes it means stealing posters that weren't for sale for concerts you couldn't afford, but went to anyway. (It looks nice on his bedroom wall, which has always been a bit a bit too sparse.)

Sometimes it means trekking all the way to fucking High Silvermere in Demacia, because you're worried a woman twice your age and three times your social status — that you've spoken to once, and only briefly — is going to get herself killed.

Well, it's not as if Ezreal gave _himself_ the title of prodigy.

He figures worst case, he makes an idiot of himself. But hey, won't that be nostalgic?

The journey there actually isn't half-bad, his own worrying aside. He likes the fresh air and the smell of dirt roads. He likes to see the sights and take in the subtle differences in the land, shifting well before he reaches the walls.

Ezreal loves technology and hextech, but there's also a charm in seeing it thin out and then fade from the landscape all-together the further he travels. Like the further he gets from Piltover, the more he is getting into the world's roots, into the parts of the world that Piltover has scrapped and buried beneath itself, beneath even Zaun.

Demacia is no different, though. It's an empire built over and on top of the past that Ezreal so eagerly tries to rebuild in his room, fragment by fragment, artifact by artifact.

The air near Demacia is cool and clean, but an odd sort of dry. Like an implacable dehydration inside of him that no amount of water will help. He feels off balance, like his weight is suddenly distributed wrongly through his body.

You can't deny the things you're afraid of so thoroughly, Ezreal thinks. It's only going to stop you from being able to protect yourself from them. How many mages slip in the way he does? With forged papers and a fake name, and too much propaganda within the walls for anyone to spot the holes? How many mages would have been caught if their magic weren't already pushed down inside them by the walls themselves, made imperceptible? You only learn to hide if you're given reason to.

The guards greet him with enthusiasm, and all Ezreal can think is _I named myself after a hair product, you idiots_.

He hadn't really expected to get away with it for so long. It had been a joke, initially. One that he had been stifling his own laughter over when he settled on it, already wording the journal he would have published when the secret came out. But then it _hadn't_.

If he is honest, he has kind of stopped expecting to get caught anymore, and so he walks through the streets without fear.

Ezreal knows from her letters that Sona lives with her mother. A bit strange, as far as Piltover customs go. Maybe that's a cruelty in itself. In Piltover, children surpass their parents and move out to live on their own — or they crash and burn and fall all the way down to Zaun, to live like the kids who were born there. In the streets.

Maybe it's different in Ionia. Maybe families stick together. Or maybe a parent who has chosen to adopt a daughter wouldn't give them up as easily, no matter the tradition.

Maybe sticking together — or keeping apart from others — is just a nobility thing.

Maybe Ezreal's ideas about how families work are running on fumes.

There's no point over thinking it when he'll be able to ask her in person soon enough. He has had plenty of time to let his mind race through all the things he wants to ask her and say to her.

When he reaches the Buvelle mansion, an address he knows now by heart, the sun is starting to set for the day.

Either side of the mansion is surrounded by long stretches of garden, but compared to the neighbors, it seems sparse. The grass is lush and well-kept, but stretches on, uninterrupted, for much longer than the neighboring mansion's yard that overflows with rose bushes.

There is a statue, only half-built. The framework is there, but it is in pieces. Marble carved into flowing golden skirts, wrapped damp around a woman's thin legs. The arms are on the ground, still separate from the rest as if they are to be attached later; Ezreal can still make out the curve of them. Outstretched, welcoming.

The antithesis of Demacian morals. The only times Ezreal hears of Demacia's goddesses as being 'welcoming,' is for the dead. But hypocrisy in art is nothing new.

Either way, it lays in pieces on the ground, unfinished. An unsightly mess on display. No wonder Sona complains about the neighbors. With nothing else in their lives worth fretting over, they must be losing their minds at the audacity of this. It looks like an abandoned project, and at second glance, the grass around the statue's pieces is just slightly overgrown.

Ezreal hoists himself over the front gate. Magic would be easier, but it feels like a shallow well to draw from right now. (He doesn't fear being banished so much as he fears being banished _before_ getting to see her again.)

He rings the doorbell, and waits.

He has just enough time to _actually_ think, for the first time, about how Sona will react to his presence. If she will be angry. Disgusted. Amused?

That sounds like torture, but it's better than the alternatives.

He expects a butler to answer the door. Instead he gets a swordswoman.

She is not wearing full armor, but her clothes tell enough to fill in the blanks. Just a step below formal. Clothes that give her protection, but stay easy to move in. She has a sword at her hip; it stands out against the plush carpeting and elegant décor of the foyer behind her.

Her dark brown hair is in a long braid falling over one shoulder. Her eyes seem friendly, but cautious as she looks him over.

"Can I help you?" She asks, and Ezreal wonders if maybe he got the address wrong.

"I'm a friend of Sona Buvelle's," he says, hyper-aware of it sounding like more of a lie than it is.

"Lady Buvelle isn't taking visitors," she says, not unkindly, but promptly begins to close the door.

Ezreal has to resist the urge to shove his foot in the doorway. That wouldn't earn him any points, he's sure. Instead he just blurts out "Will you at least tell her that Ezreal is here? If she sends me away that's fine, I'll leave. But check."

The only reason Ezreal has to believe that the woman might return is that she hesitates for just a moment before shutting the door in his face.

Ezreal blinks at the patterned glass and swirling golden trim that decorates the double doors. It's too blurry to even make out the shape of the woman behind it, to know if she is walking away or staying put and watching him.

 _Five minutes_ , he tells himself, and then he will resign himself to the long journey home from a pointless expedition.

 _This isn't an expedition_ , he reminds himself. There is no treasure worth anything in Demacia. Their history books are full of lies and their artifacts don't carry magic. At least, not the ones that he has any chance of getting at.

The woman returns seven minutes later, and opens the door for Ezreal to enter. She leads him past the dimly lit foyer, and down lengthy halls with dark blue wallpaper and glowing golden sconces. Eventually they settle in a waiting room, where she gestures for Ezreal to sit.

"Lady Lestara Buvelle will see you," she says.

Ezreal takes an obedient seat, not inclined to start fights before he has his bearings. Or when he's the one being indulged. "I'm here for Sona, though."

The woman does not seem bothered by the reminder, but does not clarify, either. She just stands by the door, staring at Ezreal intently as they wait.

It's quiet. Ezreal knows mansions like this. He's been in them before. Insulation or not, he knows the way sound travels and he knows the way a building feels when there are people inside. Where are the maids? Where are the butlers? Where are the cooks?

A home this big doesn't operate without staff, but there are no whispers behind walls or footsteps making the floorboards creak. The air is too still.

When Lestara arrives, she does so silently. She slips in through another door, turning to close it behind her as if it's a task that requires her absolute attention before she can move onto the next.

She does not look anything like Sona. Sona is tall, with hourglass curves and soft wrinkles beside her almond-eyes. Her face is round, and she has plump, pink lips. Ezreal thinks that her presence commands attention even in silence, even without instrument or audience.

But Lestara is every definition of petite. She is short and thin, with her blonde hair tied up in a tight bun. The shape of her eyes is distinctly different: wider, and a vivid green the shade of the grass outside. Freckles dust her sharp cheekbones, and her lips are a narrow line, nearly as pale as the rest of her face.

She is a pretty woman, in the way that all nobles are pretty. They do not know hardship or want for anything. They have other people to carry their stress, and so it does not engrave itself into their body. But if he passed her on the street, without the intricate golden embroidery dancing up the white silks of her dress, he does not think he would remember her face for even two steps past seeing it.

Her green eyes track up and down Ezreal's form, and he does his best to sit up straight.

"Thank you, Cithria," Lestara says, with a nod to the swordswoman. She nods back, and crosses her arms behind her back, a silent bodyguard. Then Lestara sets her attention back to Ezreal. She says his name as if feeling it out in her mouth. "Ezreal."

"Yes ma'am," he says. It feels awkward coming out, and he winces.

"I've heard of you from my daughter. You're her acquaintance in Piltover."

The word acquaintance is every bit as sharp as she intends for it to be, but he nods. He wonders what his name looks like in Sona's hands; wonders what shorthand she has made for him like a nickname. (Maybe he does not have this badge of honor, maybe she only spells his name out, letter by letter. He cannot presume that she talks about him so frequently.)

Lestara's pale lips purse tight, brow furrowing just slightly. She looks at him as if she cannot decipher what she is looking at. As if she has been handed a bitter apple and told it's a summer peach.

Honesty can't hurt, Ezreal figures. Or, it can, but he does not think that any lies will help him, here. "Sona — uh, Lady Buvelle — mentioned receiving death threats. She always writes about stuff like it's not a big deal, but I was worried. And letters take a long time to arrive, and I like traveling anyway, so I thought I would come and, I don't know. Look into it." 

It occurs to him, belatedly, that correcting the formality of her name was meaningless when the rest of the statement was so overtly familiar.

"How kind of you," Lestara says, and Ezreal cannot discern what her flat tone means.

"If I can't see her, or if she doesn't want to see me, I'll leave. I told her the same thing." Ezreal looks to Cithria, relieved that she gives a nod of confirmation when Lestara glances her way.

"Ezreal," Lestara says again, apparently ignoring what he's said. "Quite young, aren't you?"

He is not sure what to make of this. "I'm nineteen."

The amused arch of her eyebrow is more telling than Sona's reaction had been.

He doesn't know what she's implying. He doesn't know what angle to defend himself — or Sona — _from_. "I'm almost twenty. And Sona and me are just friends."

This was not the correct thing to say, because Lestara's eyebrows raise into her hairline. She looks at him, blinking and looking mystified. Maybe he misread that.

She regains her composure, brushing her bony hands down her cardigan as if to stall for time. "What are you here for?"

"To check on my friend. And to help, if I can."

"And what can you do _to_ help, Lightfeather?"

She says it so smoothly that he almost does not even notice, but when he does, his veins freeze over for just one second.

"Well," he mutters, "I should be good at protecting people. I'm a Sentinel of Light, aren't I?"

Lestara does nothing but turn his words back on him. "Aren't you?"

He is reminded of how stupid he had first felt in Sona's presence. Her mother and her have the same way of controlling a conversation. Or maybe he is just stupider than he had thought.

"You already knew I'm from outside the walls. Forged identity is the only way to get in."

"And a mage, at that," Lestara says.

Cithria's hand has come to rest at the hilt of her blade, which Ezreal does not like one bit.

After a moment of hesitation, Lestara says, as if she cannot help herself, "Surely there were other name choices."

Ezreal leans his head back. "Brand loyalty is the Demacian way."

Lestara turns completely around, as if she could conceal the tremble of laughter in her shoulders by facing the wall.

When she turns back around, she appears to be pretending the exchange never happened with incredible precision. She nods to the bodyguard. "Cithria. I believe Ezreal is an esteemed guest of my daughter's, but these are still troubling times. Prepare him a room. I'll have dinner in my own quarters this evening. The two of them may have dinner without my prying eyes, but not without yours. Oh — and of course, please show him to the music hall, first."

Ezreal hardly has time to stammer out a clipped _thank you_ before Lestara has exited the room through a different door than she came in, shutting it behind herself decisively.

Cithria meets his eyes, then nods towards the door beside her. "This way."

Her voice is light, but he can tell she's troubled by him. He doesn't blame her — knowing that she's some military girl who just learned how easily he made a mockery of the kingdom's security. Then watched Lestara see right through him so easily, yet still accept his presence.

They walk side-by-side, which is frustrating, given that Cithria knows her way around the mansion and Ezreal does not. But on some level, he understands. A bodyguard who lets a stranger walk behind them is a fool.

They pass through studies and art rooms full of dusty, cloth-covered easels, as if any artist who lived here died long ago. By the time they reach the library, Ezreal can hear the music. Familiar, soft pulls at thin strings. Her harp, drifting through the air like a current. Pulling him.

Cithria knocks on the final door, and waits for the music to come to a stuttered halt before opening it.

The music hall is so spacious that it takes Ezreal a moment to take it all in. The wooden floor is patterned, and almost entirely open, stretching out in every direction. Against the walls, instruments rest, propped up clumsily as if they are not valuable, but he can see the twists and curls of their ornate engraving.

At the back of the room, beside one of the large windows that line the walls, Sona is backlit by sunlight. The shadow cast over her is not dark at all, but the halo is golden-bright.

She has already set her etwahl to the side. It makes him imagine that she knew he was coming, and yet for a long moment she just stares at him, blinking her wide eyes.

"Uh, hey," Ezreal offers. "Your letters were worrying me, so I wanted to check on you."

His own casual tone makes him wince. This is not a daydream-worthy reunion. (Not that he had wanted it to be. Not that he thinks like that.)

Sona just nods slowly, still in a state of disbelief. For a moment he wonders if he misread the fondness in her letters. If he was projecting how meaningful they were to him and assuming she felt just as attached to him. Maybe they were stress relief and nothing more; venting the things you cannot say to the people you see in person.

Ezreal has never been good at making friends, let alone keeping them. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say he has never wanted to make friends, never _tried_ to keep them. His internal map for this friendship is still uncharted.

 _I didn't mean for you to worry,_ Sona signs.

"Yeah, I know," Ezreal mutters, and runs a hand through his hair self-consciously. He catches Cithria watching him with mild surprise on her face, and wonders if the bodyguard even knows sign language, herself. He looks back to Sona. "But you can't just write something like _that_ , you know?"

 _There have been no new letters,_ Sona signs. There is a falter to her hand movements, and Ezreal steps closer, then pauses remembering Cithria's suspicious eyes on his back. Sona adds: _Stalkers aren't uncommon among performers. I'm sure they've lost interest._

"Does anyone believe that but you?" Ezreal asks.

Sona's lips purse, her expression falling into a resigned irritation.

"If it were nothing to worry about, you wouldn't have all your servants dismissed and a single bodyguard filling in." Ezreal insists, because the relief of seeing her alright is one thing, but it's followed by a wave of frustration. The reality of the lengths they've gone to for her safety speak volumes of the danger. And she is trying to brush it off like nothing.

_Mother doesn't trust that it wasn't one of the servants._

"Well, of course not. That would be a good job for a stalker to go for!"

  
_When are you leaving?_

Ezreal crosses his arms over his chest. "In a hurry to get rid of me?"

Cithria _must_ not know sign language, because she tenses, frown deepening, only relaxing when she sees the way Sona laughs silently with a hand over her mouth.

 _Never,_ Sona signs, then rises to her feet. Her fingers brush her etwahl and it slides an inch out of her way. She crosses the room to meet Ezreal there, and for a moment it is overwhelming. Such a vast, empty room, full of shining golden things. And Sona, who he has not seen for a year, but who he has spoken to nonstop in letters, in drawings, in his heart.

They stand, inches apart; Ezreal has to tilt his head back just slightly to look her in the eyes. There is some kind of discomfort there, something being hidden from him that he cannot place.

 _I'm happy to see you,_ she signs, her finger touching his chest at 'you _.' Just surprised._

"Me too," Ezreal says, softly.

He had been worried that it would be strange. Going from letters to talking in person. But the transition is easy. It feels natural to talk to her, to stand with her. All that doubt vanishes, leaving only the two of them, close enough to touch. His chest still feels warm.

Her lips curl up into a smile and he feels himself mirror it on reflex, albeit self-consciously. His face feels a little bit hot, and—

—Cithria clears her throat loudly. "I'll show you to the guest quarters."

***

It's another journey through the maze of a mansion, but Ezreal takes to these things easily. He maps it out in his mind.

"You must understand the necessity," Cithria ventures, sounding almost apologetic. She takes a turn down an unlit hall, leading him down through the darkness.

"Yeah, it's whatever."

Cithria is quiet a moment. Ezreal listens to their footsteps, counts doors and windows as they pass them.

"It's just — it would make for such a clever cover story."

Ezreal arches an eyebrow. He decides not to point out how unwise it is for her to have shared this thought with him, if she actually finds him suspicious at all. Instead he just humors her. "You think so?"

"Certainly!"

"I'm already welcome here," Ezreal says blandly. "If all I wanted was to stalk her, I wouldn't need this whole scenario to justify it."

"It's about control and isolation," Cithria says, but her tone is so light that he can tell she has some faith in him.

He can't criticize her for trusting him, he supposes. He _is_ trustworthy, after all. If anything, he is more a threat to her as a mage than as a stalker. It's formality, though. It's the job she was assigned, and he can't fault her for the contradiction of believing him and watching him with suspicion, anyway.

He wonders if she will make him finally retire the Lightfeather name. If the mageseekers will be the ones to throw him out of the kingdom themselves.

"You could compare the handwriting," he suggests.

"We have. But that kind of thing isn't impossible to fake."

The idea that anyone else has read his letters to her is nauseating. He is quiet for the rest of the walk, his insides vibrating indignantly. It's the hot feeling of shame, and he's not unused to being embarrassed when it comes to Sona, but he's unused to it being so unpleasant.

When they reach the guest room, Cithria watches him set his bag down on the bed. It's bigger than his own bed back home. The whole room is bigger than his own bedroom — more than three times its size. It's a waste of space. Rich people, and all their needlessly spacious architecture annoy him.

"I'm watching you," Cithria warns him. "I'll be watching you for as long as you're here and as long as the Buvelle family is under my protection."

"Funny to be watching _me_ when you're here to protect Sona. You should be watching her, instead."

"You're the only unknown on the grounds," Cithria says, her mouth pulling thin. "No one else comes or goes."

There is something about the way she says this that makes him pause. He thinks of Sona, sitting in the sunlight, with the gold of her etwahl swirling at her fingertips. Pretty as a bird in a cage.

He asks, "So, like a prison?"

"Consider it protective custody," Cithria says, terse at the accusation.

They watch each other as if they are fighters in the ring, circling one another defensively and waiting for the other to go on the offensive.

"What would you rather?" Cithria finally asks, heaving a sigh with more exasperation than Ezreal can understand for how brief this exchange has been. "Let her roam freely and get herself kidnapped? Killed?"

He doesn't have a good retort. He's worried — he wouldn't have come all this way if he weren't. He's worried _because_ Sona minimizes the danger; the dismissive way she had written about it doesn't give him much confidence in her ability to keep herself safe.

He thinks of the day they met, when she had teased him and entertained him, even though he had been the one to trespass into her changing room.

"No," Ezreal concedes.

After a moment of observation, Cithria crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the doorframe. "Look. You're not actually from here, so maybe you don't know what's going on. But things are _dangerous_ right now. I would consider all nobility to be at particularly high risk, and that goes for those who _haven't_ received explicit death threats."

"At high risk from _what_?"

With her eyes still trained on him, her voice flat Cithria says, "Mages. The kingdom is in mourning, Ezreal. Our king is dead."

The moment is surreal, like reality slips out of his hands, and for all his fumbling he can't quite grasp it again. This particular drawback of travel — being away from news and gossip and journals — it's never bothered him before. Not in a place like Piltover, where nothing ever really changes, where the latest news is always just a new invention, a new fashion, a new idea being claimed and re-claimed into eternity.

A dead king does not mean much to him, but Ezreal knows better than to minimize the repercussions it will have on Demacia. And Demacia has always been a kingdom that exerts itself on the rest of the world.

Cithria blinks rapidly, and averts her gaze from him for what feels like the first time since he arrived. He can't fathom getting emotional over a king. A man she's surely never met, who she only knows for his calculated public appearances. But she sounds like she's lost her own father when she murmurs, "There was an escaped convict — a mage. He raised up a rebellion and… He's escaped the walls, now, but what's done is done. He wants _revenge_ , and so do his followers."

"It sounds like they got it," Ezreal points out.

It earns him a glare.

"It may very well be a mage that's after Lady Buvelle's life. Vengeful at her nobility and seeking to send a message."

"Makes for big news to go after a famous artist."

Cithria nods. Her glare softens into a neutral sort of squint as she watches him. "She's even had to cancel a concert at the Marewing Theater. It's for safety. Don't take it personally. I just want to protect Lady Buvelle. If you don't do anything wrong, if you — as long as you keep your affliction to _yourself_ …"

"Affliction," Ezreal repeats.

Cithria does not back down. " _Affliction._ Just don't give me a reason to turn you in. Or…"

He doesn't make her say it, but thinks it unwise that she should be a bodyguard threatening to kill when she can't even say the word.

 _Affliction_ , he thinks, bitterly. When the magic in his blood is the only blessing he has left of his parents — he would be offended even if it _were_ the poison Demacia believes it to be.

***

Dinner is uncomfortable.

Ezreal had pictured a long, long table, spread out for dozens of absent guests. Countless seats between him and Sona to keep them apart and keep them quiet. He had steeled himself for this.

But the table is an average size, set for two, and they sit so close that his feet brush hers if he is not careful.

When he thinks about it, Sona always writes of Lestara so fondly, and of the nobility and parties with such an impatience. It only makes sense that Lestara isn't as senseless as her peers; the two of them wouldn't get along so well if she were. Besides, Ezreal could tell that just from their brief interactions.

What makes dinner uncomfortable is not the silence, or the way that Sona sometimes glances up at him as if she can read his uneasiness and cannot quite understand it. It's that Cithria stands guard, leaned against the wall, ever-watchful, ever-silent.

 _I've offered for her to sit and eat with us,_ Sona says to him, the next time their eyes meet. _She always refuses._

Ezreal tilts his head in Cithria's direction.

Oblivious to being the subject of conversation, she just nods back at him.

When Sona signs to him, there is a sparkle of challenge in her eyes. She is not slowing herself down for him at all.  


_How much did you really learn?_ She wants to know, or perhaps, _show me what you've learned_ — but the arch of her eyebrow makes him think it is a question. There are times when it's hard to keep up, times when he is grasping at context to fill in the blanks.

“Not as much as I wanted to,” Ezreal admits, startled to hear it from himself. His own sincerity surprises him every time. “Hard to learn from still pictures. I'm sure I'll pick it up faster, now.”

She ducks her head, laughs silently into her palm, and then signs what he thinks is: _Over-confident._

He shrugs. “Why try if I don't think I'll succeed? Besides, I'm a genius.”

Ezreal can't blame her for looking so openly amused. She does not even have to sign the _oh, are you, now?_

“I think,” he says, “that you're probably a genius too.”

Sona tilts her head to the side, motions, _how?_ Then mimes her fingers over harp strings with a questioning look.

“I mean, music too, for sure. But I bet there's other stuff you're good at.”

He doesn't understand her next sign, and shakes his head. Instead she tries to mime opening a jar, then points to her mouth. She raises her hands, then lets out a long, relaxed sigh. (It is when she makes sounds like this that Ezreal is most put-out that she cannot speak. He imagines her voice would be heavenly. This thought is drenched in guilt.)

“Medicine?”

She smiles bright, but her gaze wanders, as if there is more to convey. He cannot tell if she is omitting because of the communication barrier or because there is something she simply does not want to tell him.

  
If there is something she would say without an audience.

“That's cool,” he says, neutrally. “Bet it's complicated dealing with different herbs and chemicals and stuff.”

Her smile doesn't waver.

“I try to avoid taking medicine,” he says, and shrugs.

Sona presses a hand over her heart with a feigned gasp, but laughs when Ezreal rolls his eyes at her.

 _Childish_ , she signs to him, and this he knows, this he remembers. He had hyper-focused on the word in his book in hopes of never seeing her sign it in person. It does not crash down on him like he had expected.

He just huffs. “I get injured more than I get sick.”

Sona looks vaguely alarmed to hear it, pausing with her fork half-way to her mouth.

“Adventuring,” Ezreal clarifies. “No risk, no reward?”

She leans back, her whole body arching with skepticism. After a moment, she relaxes again.

 _I miss travel,_ she says. _Seeing the world for my concerts. I miss the freedom._

"I would hate being cooped up."

Cithria shoots him a warning look that he pretends not to notice.

 _It's so dry inside these walls,_ Sona says, her eyes downcast so that she cannot have even known if he was listening or not.

He doesn't understand, and wonders if he had simply misread her words.

***

When night falls, Cithria leads him back to the guest room.

"Overkill," Ezreal comments, as Cithria digs a key-ring from her pocket. But with only one bodyguard, he understands the necessity of it well enough. Cithria still needs to sleep, and they hadn't known a guest was coming. It isn't as if they had warning enough to hire a second guard to take shifts with.

It's hard to be _too_ offended, knowing that he can teleport back into the hall as soon as she's gone.

That's exactly what he does.

It's an easy arcane-shift, even if he still feels that particular sort of unquenchable thirst inside himself when he tries to draw from what should be a deep well of mana. It isn't just the border walls around Demacia that are made with petricite; he knows it's spread throughout the kingdom. Scattered like salt circles, flowing like it's in the water.

He doesn't know where Sona's room is, but he's sure that Cithria's is near it. He doubts it's far from Lestara's, either. He needs to be quiet.

He doesn't have to search long; Sona finds him first, turning a corner to the hall he is walking down. He sees her shoulders jump before his eyes reflexively drop to her hands.

_Quiet. With me._

He follows. Makes note of the number of doors before she lets him into her bedroom. She closes the door behind them, leaning against it as he takes in his surroundings.

It's just as ornate as the rest of the mansion. Her etwahl rests beside her bed, an ever-present companion. Everything is navy blue — the walls, the carpeting. The curtains, with silver-stars and swooping circular lines patterned across them. There are bookshelves overflowing with papers and folders, and at a glance he can tell that most of them are covered in music notes.

It is only when Sona brushes past him and takes a seat on the edge of her bed, brushing the lacy canopy aside, that Ezreal realizes she is only wearing a thin nightgown. And it is only this sight that makes him consider his actions from an outside perspective.

"Uh," he begins, still trying to work out how to defend his lack of foresight.

Sona brings her finger to her lips.

 _Quiet,_ she repeats.

But the quirk of her lips tells him that this is more as a game than out of a fear of being caught.

Of course it is, Ezreal thinks. If he's caught, he's the one it reflects badly on, not her. He's the threat — or the play-thing. Whichever they deduce he is.

He knows he's not a threat.

He wonders if she knows he's not a play-thing.

 _I wanted to talk more,_ he signs, acutely aware of how clumsy his movements are. How slow and unsure.

She leans back. Her hair is in a long braid down her back; the thin skirt of her nightgown pulls around her thighs. _About?_

 _Don't know,_ he signs.

There is a long pause, in which Sona seems to grow more and more amused by his helplessness. Finally, he gives in to his curiosity, bringing up what has been on his mind since his talk with Cithria.

_Cithria said the king was killed. You didn't write about it._

Sona's lips pull thin. _I'm not sure it's public information beyond the kingdom._

He nods, tentative. There is a particular way that her blue eyes slice away from him, a glaringly obvious tell that something is going unsaid. 

_Come,_ Sona signs after a moment, smiling again, and raises her hand back up to hold the canopy aside for him.

Ezreal swallows thickly. Shakes his head. _I'm not here for—_ he begins, but drops his hands when he realizes he doesn't know how to sign the rest, even if he wanted to. He didn't want to, anyway. Doesn't think he could have.

He feels the rush of heat in his cheeks when Sona laughs silently, one hand over her mouth and the other raised, stretching out towards her etwahl. Just out of reach, but like she expected it to be there.

 _Just teasing,_ she tells him.

His tensed shoulders relax, but not all the way. There is something in this that seems — cruel, almost. He would like to think that this is uncharacteristic of her, but he isn't so sure. She isn't as nice as she plays at — he knows this from her letters, full of subtle vitriol for the riches around her.

Maybe it's only natural that she would want to tease him. He's young, after all. He doesn't like the piercing knife of self-doubt that so easily lodges itself between his ribs. Lestara sees him as a precocious child. Sona might, too.

 _I'm happy you came to me,_ Sona says. The distance of the room feels vast; he wishes he had been brave enough to cross the room, but she lowers her hand and he sees the falling canopy as a door closing. He tries not to think this way. Tries not to be so wishful. _Though I worry._

 _Why?_ He asks.

He doesn't understand what she signs, next. He shakes his head.

 _Dangerous times,_ she tries instead. _For mages._

 _From mages?_ He clarifies.

Sona frowns; shakes her head. _For mages._

 _I'm okay,_ Ezreal assures her. _I'm strong._

A small smile graces her lips. Something about it is restrained. _I'll play you a song, she says. Then slowly teaches him: Lullaby._

 _Lullaby,_ he repeats.

She lifts the canopy again, and this time he comes to her bedside, hesitating in front of her.

Guided by the sweeping of her arm, Ezreal climbs past her to lay in the blankets that smell like her, that are so plush that he feels buried in them. He watches her back as she pulls her etwahl closer. He resists the urge to reach out and touch her hair.

The song she plays is slow and gentle. It puts him at such ease that he fears he might fall asleep here, might have to panic in the morning to make it back to his room undetected. He doesn't want the song to end.

But it's only one song. One song, and then her hands are brushing his hair from his face, and an amused smirk is on her lips when he pulls away from her, trying not to look as flustered as he feels.

***

For two weeks, the rhythm of their days is foreign in its luxuriousness, and in how rarely Ezreal is alone.

Cithria wakes him for breakfast shortly after sunrise, and Lestara joins them for meals. The three of them sit at the small table while Cithria watches, and Ezreal wonders when she eats at all, because he hasn't seen her do it yet, and she never leaves the periphery of his vision.

The conversations between Lestara and Sona are unrestrained and fast; he often can't keep up or interject. They have their own nicknames for things, their own code-words and slang they've developed, and rarely stop to teach him anything.

This is not isolating. Nor is it isolating to be in such a mansion with only three people, knowing that there should be more around.

Ezreal is used to being alone. To him, this is abundant with people.

He can see that Sona feels otherwise, even if she did not say it.

Sometimes Lestara does speak to him. She knows how to be friendly and welcoming. Not all nobles do — least of all the socialites who pride themselves on it the most. But Lestara does. She asks him about his travels and seems sincerely interested when he speaks of the world.

"I do miss travel," she murmurs. "When I was younger and invincible."

"Then you probably want this lockdown over with, too," Ezreal says.

He does not know what to make of the sharp way that both Sona and Lestara look at one another, then quickly away.

Ezreal, though, is not so cooped up. There is no reason for him not to come and go from the mansion, and so he spends time in the city. Familiarizing himself with it if, for no other reason, a point of comparison in his research. It's easier to understand the 'strange' cultures of the past when you know just how different things can be from place to place in the present.

And it's easiest to pick up gossip and local news from a busy bazaar than anywhere else.

Within the walls of the mansion, Ezreal listens to Sona play her etwahl. Watches her scratch music notes in her journals again and again. He sits beside her as she reads. Plays board games with her, and sometimes even Cithria is willing to join them in three-person chess tournaments or simple card games.

The lives of nobility, Ezreal thinks, are exceedingly dull. He would go mad if he had the kind of wealth that keeps you from discovering the world around you. Even Sona seems bored, and she actually has a passion.

Ezreal could listen to her music forever. Could watch her fingers glide over strings for an eternity, and watch her long eyelashes when her gaze is cast down on her instrument.

She'd said herself that she misses the freedom. That this is stifling to her.

After a week, they let him see the letters.

They aren't what he'd expected. They aren't made of journal clippings or scrawled near-illegibly. They aren't wild, frantic words. The writing is in tidy cursive, flourished with immaculate swirls.

 _I'm an artist, too,_ one letter says. _So I understand the tragedy of your silence. I understand the beauty in what's broken, but I understand better the beauty in its repair._

 _Broken bird,_ another says. _Broken bird, broken bird, broken bird._

_Shatter the cage, shatter the chords. I'll fix you, make you eternal, a perfect work of art._

It's nauseating. Ezreal had not expected such a visceral reaction from himself, but he looks to Sona and sees the tension in her body nearly enough to distract him from her furious glare, and it makes him sick to his stomach.

This isn't what admiration looks like — this isn't what love looks like.

There must be some kind of anger on his face, because Sona reaches out to hold his face, her thumb stroking over his cheek for just one moment.

She draws back. _I think they've forgotten me by now,_ she tells him. _It's been a long time since we got any letters._

"Hopefully," Ezreal says, but he is sure he would have been more convinced if he hadn't seen the letters for himself.

In the evenings, Lestara helps him sort out what he's picked up from his time out in the city.

"So the prince is in charge, then?"

Lestara nods. She looks Sona's way as she signs something too quickly for Ezreal to read. "Very sudden for him. And I'm sure he must still be grieving his father… It must be difficult."

"Probably got a lot to do with why he's cracking down on mages so hard," Ezreal says, aware of his own lofty tone for a trespassing mage.

Lestara looks down to her plate as she eats, as if suddenly disinterested.

"Everyone's saying the mages are gathering outside the walls. Hidden communes and stuff."

  
Sona makes alarmed eye-contact with him, very quickly signing: _Careful_.

Lestara speaks over her, not so much as glancing her way. "We don't need to know about the mages. They're banished. That's all that matters."

Ezreal raises an eyebrow. "I heard a lot of talk about revolution — you think they're just gone now?"

There's a silent fury in Lestara's body, and Ezreal thinks of how brittle she looks. Like if she furrows her brow too much she'll shatter like porcelain.

"They can't come home," Lestara says, her voice cracking. She clears her throat. "No revolution is peaceful. There will be no place for them, even if they make one."

"But you'll let me stay," he presses, unsure.

Sona is signing _Don't bother_ , looking increasingly frustrated at her exclusion from the conversation, but Ezreal is too curious. He doesn't understand Lestara's stance.

"And I'll let you leave," the woman says. "This isn't your home to begin with. I don't mind your company — I enjoy hearing your stories and I appreciate the company you've brought us. But you aren't mine."

When Ezreal looks back to Sona, she is staring at her mother with an expression of heartbreak.

Even so, she smiles and signs to Lestara: _I love you._

Lestara returns it, looking suddenly weary.

***

But in the nights, they can speak of whatever they please.

After dinner has been had, and goodnights have been exchanged, and the key has turned in the lock to the guest room. After Ezreal has flickered from one room to the next with magic, and found himself in Sona's room where she is waiting with a mischievous smile.

 _Tell me what they say,_ Sona signs, lifting the canopy to her bed.

Ezreal comes to sit beside her. The canopy has begun to feel like a veil that separates the two of them from the rest of the world. A barrier, different from the sunbeams they sit beneath in the music hall or the shadow of the gazebo that they stand beneath in the gardens. Not even Cithria's watchful eyes reach them here, in the bedroom.

He can't fixate on that. He shouldn't.

_That the mages are gathering._

_They think they have somewhere to go,_ Sona signs.

Ezreal cannot tell what she feels about this. He cannot even tell what Sona feels about him.

As a mage.

 _Better than being locked up,_ Ezreal signs, refusing to think about it. Refusing to wonder.

 _Yes,_ Sona agrees. Her hands drop slowly to her lap.

 _You said there haven't been any letters in a long time,_ Ezreal offers. They are only inches apart. He can feel the indent of the bed beneath her weight, pulling him towards her.

He wants to touch her arm or her back to comfort her, but it isn't just that he needs his hands to speak that stops him. It's the echo of everything they say, everything they do. The uncertainty of how attuned they really are to one another.

Even now, he is unsure if they are on the same wavelength or not about their — friendship.

Or if there's more, how genuine it is. Ezreal hates that his mind always comes back to this same spiral of uncertainty and shame and want.

Sometimes he thinks he might be alright with it, whether Sona realizes how sincere he is or not. He tries to push this feeling down.

 _I'm sure you'll be free, soon,_ he tells her.

She looks at him with a condescending sort of pity, and does not give reply before pulling her etwahl closer.

Later, after the music, when he has laboriously dragged himself back up from the plush comfort of her bed and calmed his heart after the torturous proximity — when he stands by the door as if lingering for as long as she'll allow, Sona finally speaks again.

_When you're sure that I'm safe, you're going to leave._

He watches the way her hair falls in her face as she looks down, the way it cascades like something she could hide behind. Like something she _wants_ to hide behind. His heart is racing again in an instant, pounding against his ribs, chiseling out the same question he is always, always asking.

_I can't stay forever._

She must be able to hear his heartbeat, even from across the room. He can't fathom that she couldn't. She watches him, but he doesn't understand the emotion that flickers in her eyes. Her lips stay pulled in a thin frown that he can't look away from.

 _But when you're safe, you can travel again,_ he tries.

Her hand waves in the air, not words this time, but a dismissal.

When he is back in the guest room, laying alone in bed and staring up at the ceiling, Ezreal is left with nothing to do but grapple with that reality.

There was no detective work to be done, no mastermind to track down. Just an idiot writing some letters and then getting bored.

He can't stay here forever.

***

Sona teaches him to dance. Another of her games, Ezreal thinks.

Her song fills the music room, pouring from a record-player. He recognizes that it's her playing so vividly that when he closes his eyes he can see her at her etwahl.

Her hand is warm over his when she tugs him into place. She sets his hand on the curve of her hip with a smile. Her other hand holds his.

They move slowly with the music, at taking careful and awkward steps, each one guided by her. He hears Cithria snickering from across the room and scowls, but does not complain. He focuses on learning the pattern. On mimicking her movements until he can do them without watching. Until he can lead the dance like he's supposed to.

They have spoken in letters for so long that it feels almost a waste to spend time with her without words. Not asking for her thoughts or her opinion, not delving into her feelings and perspective. It almost feels a waste to not use this time to convey himself to her in return.

Almost.

But words aren't everything. The silence between them is not silent.

Her music is like comets streaking through his mind, twinkling and sparkling. It's a radiant thing that fills the room and fills his heart.

The silence of his home has bothered him from the day his parents left. That aching quiet never left him until now, where it is filled with songs, and with the quiet puff of air as Sona laughs at his misstep.

***

They are in the gardens, resting in the shade of the gazebo. Ezreal cannot stop looking at Sona's bare shoulders, tinged pink from the sunbeam that she is basking in, seated on the railing like a rebellious teenager. There's still something elegant about it, but maybe this will always feel true for as long as she wears these beautiful dresses. For as long as her hair nearly reaches the floor, and for as long as Ezreal is helplessly, hopelessly infatuated.

The ornate embroidery of her dress spirals gold up her legs, up her sides, curling skin-tight over her breasts. She is biting her cheek to keep from laughing when Ezreal looks back up to meet her eyes.

He scowls, blushing again and exhausted by this as always — but can't keep up the frustration. He lets out a quiet laugh, too. It's hard to mind being teased by her.

 _It's so nice out,_ Sona says, between bars.

Ezreal thinks again that she is a caged bird. Whether the cage is a gazebo, a garden, a mansion, or a kingdom.

"Yeah," Ezreal murmurs. "It's perfect."

She looks at him like she disagrees, though he had only been agreeing with _her_ in the first place.

 _I want to show you something,_ Sona says. _To tell you something._ She sends a furtive glance over his shoulder, and Ezreal follows her gaze to Cithria.

 _She can't read this,_ he offers.

Sona shakes her head.

 _Tonight?_ He tries.

Sona says: _I want the immediate truth from you._

It's true that his sign language has been improving much faster, but she has a point. If she's looking for his first response, sign language won't cut it. He won't know the words fast enough. He'll have time to filter himself.

 _Follow me,_ Sona says. She hops down from the railing, and reaches for his hand. Her touch is soft, fingers only barely brushing against his in a butterfly-light pull that he couldn't fight if he tried.

He does not look back to Cithria, but knows she is watching as Sona leads him to the rose bushes along the outer wall of the mansion. She leans forward as if showing off their petals, and Ezreal leans closer, too.

_There are some rooms she can't unlock. Rooms only mother has the keys for._

He signs back, _I don't think Lestara will get in on this plan._

Sona laughs, which he suspects is mostly for show. She signs, _They can be unlocked from the inside. Use magic. Let me in. Lock them again._

_Trying to turn your family against me?_

_I wouldn't need a special plan for that. She's going to tire of watching too intently. We'll go around the corner casually. Then run. Follow me._

He nods, and the two of them continue looking at the flowers, even gesturing at some. He isn't sure how Sona decides when to move; he doesn't risk drawing attention by looking back to check on Cithria.

But when Sona turns the corner with him, he follows, as calm and easily as he can.

They take only three steps before Sona laughs, grabs her skirts, and breaks into a sprint. Their footsteps give them away, echoing in the breezeway before Sona heaves open a door.

Inside, the carpeting muffles their footsteps. The room Sona leads him to is close to the music hall they spend so much time in; a plain looking door to the side of it. Sona hardly stops in time, catching herself up against it with both her palms and laughing again.

Ezreal doesn't waste time checking — he shoots her a wink, and arcane shifts to the other side.

The lock is just a knob to twist, and he only cracks the door open before Sona pulls it the rest of the way. She rushes inside, slams it shut, and locks it again.

"Cithria's going to think I'm attacking you or something," Ezreal says, heart still racing with adrenaline over such a childish thing.

Sona laughs, her back to the door. Her hair is mussed from the run, strands bunched up between her shoulders and the hardwood. Her shoulders are still flushed, lightly sunburned, and now her cheeks match.

 _No she's not,_ Sona says. _She isn't stupid._

"So she'll know that _you're_ the mastermind, huh?"

 _Of course._ Sona lets out a long exhale, her breath still trembling with an undercurrent of laughter. The silence finally stretches, the stillness of the room catches up with them both.

It's not nearly as spacious as the music room. An unused storage room, Ezreal assumes. Nearly empty, save for a couple of instruments and tools for maintenance. There's a thick layer of dust over everything, and dust in the air, stirred up by their movement. It catches in the dim light, barely coming in through the closed curtains.

The weather is hot enough today that even through curtains, Ezreal can feel the sun warming his back. Even through curtains, the room is not dark, and he can see the difference where his own shadow casts itself across Sona's form.

This should not feel illicit, Ezreal thinks, when he has laid in her bed each night to listen to her music.

Telling himself this does not slow his pulse or cool his face.

"Wanted to confess to me in private, huh?" He jokes. "I get it."

He can't feign having the upper hand like he had hoped. Sona just tilts her head back to look down her nose at him, a knowing sparkle in her eyes. He waits for the amused 'is that what you think is happening?'

But what Sona signs to him is: _Yes._

"Uh," Ezreal says.

Sona steps forward, crossing the gap between them. He has been teased by her enough that he recognizes the sincerity on her face, the maternal sort of gentleness that she wears when she pets his hair or thinks he's said something charming.

 _I think you already know,_ she says, with a subtle hesitation to her movements. _But I still want to tell you._

He _doesn't_ know, Ezreal thinks. He's spent every day since he arrived here trying to get a sincere read on her feelings, trying to tell if the way she teases him is the end of this path.

 _I think we're the same,_ she adds. She reaches out; Ezreal swallows thickly as she cups his cheek, her thumb running over the marks on his face. He hasn't been hiding them, inside the mansion. Her fingers trace over the blue glow of his 'affliction.'

"I — probably?" He stammers.

There's a small pulse of disappointment when she pulls away, but he knows it's because she needs her hands to speak.

He lets himself think: Maybe she isn't just toying with him when she allows him to stay. When she invites him to her bed. Maybe she wants him too, and maybe she even means it.

 _I've never said this to anyone but my mother,_ Sona confesses, _but I have magic too._

Ezreal blinks.

The illusion he had built up in his chest shatters, crashing down around their feet as Sona stares at him, vulnerable and tense.

"Oh," he says. "You meant. Oh. Okay."

Her brow furrows, lips parted with confusion. He's sure she's waiting for a different response, a better response, but he can't push himself back into the moment after realizing that he had been so completely outside of it.

He hears footsteps; sees Sona glance towards the sound.

His mind races, skipping tracks between every heartbeat. _The king is dead,_ he thinks, and in its shadow: _I'm in love with you. The mages are fleeing Demacia_ , he thinks. _I'm in love with you_.

 _It's so dry inside these walls,_ he remembers.

He hears the creak of a door nearby opening; Cithria searching for them in the music hall. There is no urgency to the sound. Ezreal feels too numb to be relieved.

"Why are you telling me?" Ezreal asks.

Sona looks confused, her brow only furrowing further, as if she does not understand the question.

 _Because we're the same,_ she says. _Because we're friends._

"So it's not even that big a deal," he bites out. "You're just admitting that you're a mage to someone who obviously won't care."

 _Won't care,_ she signs, expression flattening. Her eyes are beginning to narrow, her body steeling itself against his reaction which he knows is all wrong, which he _knows_ is unfair and unkind.

"I care," he clarifies, his tone still terse. "I just…"

He isn't sure what to say. That he was expecting something else?

This is exactly why she toys with him, Ezreal thinks, as confusion spreads back across Sona's face. Because for as sincere a person as she is, she has slotted him into the role of a child in her life. She hasn't looked at him as an adult since the day they met, and so this has been only natural.

She signs something he does not know — her hand crossing her chest with her fingers dancing after it like a tail, her other hand below. He doesn't have time to ask for clarification.

 _What's wrong?_ She asks, softening, and then her hand comes to his cheek again, soothing and maternal.

He reaches up to hold it there, exhaling slowly.

Ezreal thinks about the music Sona plays, and the unkind things she writes about others in her letters, and about the feeling of her hand brushing hair from his face. He thinks about the way she rolls her eyes when no one else will catch her, and the longing way she stares at the blue sky.

He thinks about hiding from the world and kissing her behind the canopy of her bed, and he thinks about what it might take to prove to her that he's a man.

"I love you."

She looks surprised to hear it. He can't fathom this.

 _I love you_ , she signs back with one hand, not letting go of him.

He leans his face into her palm, relishing the warmth of it like it might never be offered again. "Not the same way," he murmurs.

There is sympathy in her eyes, and for just one moment he thinks that this is most sincerely she has ever looked at him. For just one moment he thinks, with relief and hopelessness mixed together, that at least they are on the same page, now. At least he knows where he stands.

Then her eyes dart away from his.

It's a tell. But Ezreal has always been terrible at gambling. He doesn't know what this means.

He's lost faith in his ability to read her, anyway.

He guides her hand down from his face; leads her to the door.

It's no surprise to see Cithria waiting in the hall, her back against the wall and her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes flick from his face to their hands, and he can't make sense of the mix of irritation and sympathy on her face.

***

Ezreal doesn't go to Sona's room in the night.

He packs his things back into his bag, and he lays in the guest bed, and he thinks about what good-byes should look like.

He isn't used to getting to say them.

He entertains daydreams that Sona comes to his room — just to clear the air, if nothing else. But it's quiet outside the door, and eventually he drifts off to sleep, mentally wording out letters and letters and letters that he hopes they will still go back to sending.

***

He plans to leave. Really, he does.

His heart can barely handle the discomfort of eating breakfast together. Lestara leads gentle conversation with Sona, but there's an awkward way that Sona's eyes keep slicing to him and then quickly away, as if she hadn't expected to be caught. As if he could look at anyone else.

He _plans_ to leave.

Lestara says, aloud, "Perhaps we can bring back the staff, soon." When Sona brightens too much she adds, delicately, "As a tentative thing, love. We still can't assume you're safe to walk freely."

 _I'm safe enough to leave,_ Sona signs, expression petulant.

Cithria shifts her weight. "Madam. I… Had hoped to speak to you about this after breakfast… But I don't want anyone getting their hopes up too high. There was another letter out by the gates this morning."

Ezreal looks to Sona so quickly that he cannot be sure if it was Cithria's words or Sona's devastated expression that make his heart sink.

But what makes his blood run cold is that when he looks back to Lestara — she looks relieved.

The letter itself is nothing special, Ezreal thinks. It doesn't stick to the walls of his chest and echo in his heart the way Sona's letters to him do, the way his own letters to her do. There's a poetry to it, pretty words and metaphors, but it's wrong. It's like reading prose about a stranger.

The writer's familiarity is misplaced, and Ezreal knows that maybe his own familiarity was, too.

But whoever it is still writes about her the same way. Like someone broken, someone in need of fixing. At least Ezreal is mature enough to understand that the one lacking between the two of them, the one who is _not enough_ is himself. The writer needs to be taught this lesson. Roughly, if Ezreal has a say in it.

"Well," Lestara says, and does a poor job of not sounding pleased as her eyes skim over Ezreal to Cithria. "With a welcome guest to keep you occupied, perhaps we should request another bodyguard? If there are men to spare for one little family."

"The Buvelle family's influence is vast," Cithria answers politely, so immediately that to Ezreal it sounds rehearsed. Fake and practiced, but he is sure believed even so. "I'll consider it."

Cithria lays the letter out on the table, and the two women of the Buvelle family look over it together, their eyes scanning it with a patience and confusion and still, of course, an under-current of fear.

Ezreal doesn't understand. His head is swimming with questions he can't articulate, and when he finally opens his mouth to try, he's cut off by Sona abruptly moving away from her mother.

She does not say anything before storming from the room, leaving him alone with Cithria and Lestara.

Lestara watches the empty doorway for a moment, impassive. Then turns to Ezreal.

"I hope you'll stay as long as you're able," Lestara says.

"Even though I could be a threat?"

Lestara scoffs. "I hardly think you're still a suspect. The bodyguard is formality. It's her job — her purpose, here. But we're lucky to have you."

"Are you," Ezreal mutters.

Cithria answers him anyway, her curious voice startling him. "We are. Lady Buvelle — she was so bored before you came. Keeping her safe and inside every day was… A task."

Lestara smiles and nods. "I appreciate that you keep her occupied."

He doesn't like talking about Sona like this. Like a child that needs to be distracted, like a responsibility, a burden on someone's shoulders.

He usually tries to be nice to Lestara; he knows he's here on her good-will. He can't keep from scowling. "Instead of just locking her down, you need to find her stalker and have them locked up. You can't just live the rest of your life hiding out like this. A stalker isn't a plague that you can _wait_ out."

Lestara's lips pull thin. She waves a hand to dismiss him, and he's sure Cithria would enforce the order with more than just a gentle hand on his arm if he actually fought it.

***

Cithria lets him look over the letter.

He pours over the delicate curls of every inked letter, over the quality of paper and the smallest of smudges.

But it doesn't mean anything to him. How could it?

Even so, he stays in the library all day. When he bores of staring at the same words, the same paragraphs, he seeks out new books and reads them by the window alone.

Or tries to.

His mind runs over the letter like he's _still_ reading it again and again, against his will.

_Can you stand to be unheard? Oh, of course you think it so. Made your peace with silence, Eternal. Talking without words. Oh, to speak. Mother hears you, mother hears you. And I? Rest in wait for your Eloquence. When I know that your words are waiting. Impatient to be drawn from you like a last breath. Now the time draws near to Greet one another. To both speak as artists do, in concepts, in lyrics, in song, and in death. Have no fear. Eternity is something you've made peace with. All your life has been one eternity, and next, another. There is a tragedy of Eloquence given with Radiance._

_All buried inside. Trapped by your own body._

_Don't be afraid of the freedom I offer you. Understand. Sona, sona, sona, sona, sona. Know that our collaboration would set you free. know that I see you._

It's a man falling in and out of lucidity, Ezreal thinks. Forgetting capitalizations, rambling, making no sense. It isn't even as poetic as previous letters had been. It's much less coherent.

Maybe a mental break.

Maybe—

"—I can't believe you came all this way and now you're avoiding her," Cithria says, interrupting his thoughts.

He glances up from the book in his lap that he has been staring at the same page of for the last two hours. Cithria is nearby, looking at the window with her hands behind her back, like she is playing at being completely professional. But after her comments today, Ezreal knows better.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "What makes you say I'm avoiding anyone?"

Her gaze flits to him, watching him sidelong for a moment. She turns her attention back to the window. "You're usually together by this time of day, that's all. You're usually together _all_ day. _Every_ day."

"Then maybe you should stop following _me_ around and start following _her_ around, since she's the one in danger."

This makes Cithria's shoulders slump, just slightly.

"I know you're not her stalker," she says. "I can tell. Intuition, you know?"

"That's even _more_ reason—"

"—I think it's _just_ a stalker. A weirdo writing letters. They're not actually going to do anything. Lady Buvelle says they've dealt with them before. Usually they're caught by now, or do something stupid, but… I don't think she's in any danger."

Ezreal leans his head back, exasperated, until it hits the window pane with a light _thunk._ "Then why bother with any of this?"

When Cithria turns to face him, her eyes don't quite meet his. They land on the blue marks on his cheeks.

"I don't know," she murmurs.

"Have you ever been in love?" Ezreal asks, nonsensically, immediately feeling stupid.

But Cithria just tilts her head to the side. "There was… A girl, once. Captain's sister. Pretty girl — and _bright_."

"Yeah?"

She hesitates. Shakes her head. "I think… I think that she's afflicted."

"So am I," Ezreal points out. "And you just called me harmless."

"I didn't say you were harmless, I said you weren't a stalker."

He shrugs. "Difference?"

"Not right now," she concedes.

He lets a silence pass. He wouldn't say that he and Cithria are close, even after having her by his side practically from the moment he arrived. But they are close to the same age. He doesn't dislike her.

And a curiosity is gnawing at his insides, maybe a desire for a happy ending, even if only vicarious.

"So?"

Cithria mimics back to him, feigning cluelessness. "So?"

"So she's afflicted. Did she join the mages?"

Cithria's shoulders slump, and her hands draw her braid over her shoulder, where she slowly twists the tip of her hair around one finger. For a long moment she doesn't answer, and with every passing second Ezreal is more and more certain that the answer is yes.

"No," Cithria murmurs, watching her own fingers. "I guess that some people would choose to live in a cage."

"Well good for you, then," Ezreal drawls, knowing that it isn't what Cithria wants, knowing that it's a cruel thing to say. He knows that he deserves the glare that he gets for it.

***

He sees Sona out in the gardens through the library window. It's the golden hour, and the sunlight between tree-leaves drops stars into her hair as she plucks half-heartedly at her etwahl. The glow catches her instrument, makes every movement shimmer like the light that threads over ocean-waves.

It's blindingly radiant, and Ezreal has to stand up and move away for fear that he will stare so long and so intently that he will be caught. He moves to the table, facing the doorway away from the window, and Cithria lets him look over the other letters, just for something to distract himself. She hovers by his side, looking at them over his shoulder as well.

The others are still too metaphorical to say they are more coherent, but they do not waltz in and out of grammar. They do not forget to capitalize in one spot — but remember in the wrong one.

He is staring at the letters in a room that is painted in a surreal golden light. Even Cithria seems captivated, watching it pour over window panes and stripe across the floor.

The shadows are just beginning to descend on the room when Ezreal turns his head from observing the room back to the letter and notices — that there is a pattern.

His finger thumbs along the letter as he looks over it again.

It's the simplest cipher there is, if you could even call it one. But it would need to be simple if the goal was to be understood by someone not expecting it, not knowing what to look for.

It isn't just the capital letters. But close. The capitals at the start of each sentence, and those out of place.

_Come to Marewing Theater at dusk._

He feels his heart drop, like his body is a hollow pit for it fall and fall and fall inside of.

He turns to the window, searching for Sona in the gardens, where she had been what feels like only moments ago. The gold has turned to sunset orange, the shadows into purple, and Sona is gone.

"You mentioned that Sona had to cancel a concert or something, right?" Ezreal asks, forcing his voice even. "Where was the venue? I just want to check it out."

***

If he's wrong, Ezreal thinks, then he's wrong.

If he's wrong, then he's gone out exploring, and Cithria will cross the mansion while he's away, and find Sona safe and sound. If he's wrong, he will come home feeling silly for how fast his heart is pounding, he will come home feeling that a petty rejection of romance is _nothing_ as long as she is alive and well. He will come home, and admit that her home is not his, and he will leave.

But if he's right—

—If he's right, he is not going to let anything happen to her.

If he's right, Cithria will search for Sona and will not find her. She will remember exactly where he said he was going, and if she is smart, she will follow.

He doesn't think he'll need the help. The thing about being a mage in Demacia is that he never feels like he's in danger. The most important thing is just that he'll need to be ready to escape from mageseekers, if the idiots come after him instead of whoever is stalking one of their respected nobles with impunity.

The theater is huge. Bigger than the one he first saw Sona in. Like everything in Demacia it is made of sprawling marble and spires, decorated with statues and banners and swirling embossment.

It's dark. Locked, of course, and Ezreal sees that there are signs by the front for upcoming performances. Tonight, there are none.

The lock is no hindrance to someone who doesn't need a door at all. Ezreal draws from his magic, shifting from outside to in with a quick burst of magic, as stifled as he can make it.

The dark is jarring. There had been starlight outside, at least. Now he gets only its edges, pushing through the windows like waves at low tide. It's not enough to get a good look around him.

But there is sound. Down the hall, past the ticket booth and up winding stairs, beyond a wide double-door, shut tight.

Sona's etwahl. A song, he thinks, at first. But it's fast, chaotic. Musical at first but quickly turning discordant, like palms slammed against the strings in anger. He hears the muffled sound of someone speaking, but can't make out the words.

In Ezreal's head, he imagines that he will burst in like a hero. He will have to out himself as a mage to whoever the stalker is, but it's worth it. Even if his fake identity has to burn, even if he's banished from Demacia proper and never gets to see Sona again, it will have been worth it if she is safe.

But what happens is this: Ezreal sprints along the carpeted steps, arcane shifts through the locked doors to the arena, and lands hard on the other side. For a moment he is too startled to move, taking in his surroundings as quickly as he can. His eyes and mind race all around. Red velvet seats curl around the room, facing the stage, all perfectly aligned. Flower petals are everywhere, and the smell of wet paint.

On the stage, under the spotlight, a man in a mask. Sona's etwahl, and—

—Sona. On her feet, grappling with the masked man. He has one of her wrists in one hand, but she has his other wrist in her own. Her hair is a tangled mess, spilling loose over her shoulders, some strands caught and pulled painfully in both their grips. Her limbs tremble with exertion as she is overpowered, as he pushes her another step backwards. As he wrenches his arm not out of her grip, but still into any place he wants it.

They are both too distracted to have seen Ezreal enter. He watches for just a moment as Sona growls, yanking his arm back to make him stumble and turning both their bodies with the momentum. She tries to knee him in the stomach, but he twists further and lets her hit him in the side instead, taking the hit like it is nothing.

"Imperfect as you are," He says, voice echoing in the theater. "You wish you could speak, don't you? I understand. I—"

Ezreal does not let him finish the thought. He rushes down the aisle and vaults up onto the stage, charging and releasing mana as he lands. If the man is surprised, his mask conceals it. He dodges the shot and spins Sona around with her arm held behind her back. A human shield.

Ezreal hesitates.

Sona's eyes dart to her etwahl, then back to Ezreal imploringly.

 _I have magic too,_ he remembers.

What kind? He should have asked. Just like every time he re-reads one of her old letters to him and thinks back on how foolish he was to not follow up on each little curiosity, this failing hits him between the ribs.

"Here to play hero?" The man asks with unfiltered disgust.

"She doesn't need one," Ezreal counters, slowly circling the man on the spacious stage.

"She does," the man says, shaking his head. The mask's expression flat, unchanging. He turns as Ezreal moves, keeping Sona between them. Ezreal can't let himself look at her too long, can't risk the weakness that would blossom in him. "Poor thing can't speak for herself."

Disgust bubbles up in him, nauseating. The kind of frustration that feels endless when you know that someone cannot see eye to eye with you. The kind of frustration of arguing with a brick wall.

"She can."

They move like a grotesquely paranoid dance, slowly rotating, still facing each other on the stage.

Ezreal bumps into Sona's etwahl with his hip before he even realizes he's turned them around enough to be beside it. He tries not to look, tries not to give that opening, but his eyes dart down—

—he hears the sound of Sona hitting the wooden stage, thrown aside by her stalker.

Ezreal doesn't have time to think. He hold of her etwahl, feeling the mana of it crash over him like a tidal wave, so intensely that he cannot understand how the mageseekers have not found her yet — then arcane-shifts to her side.

He reappears in a shimmer of light just in time to see the bullet fly through where he had just stood.

The man startles; maybe he wasn't expecting magic or maybe he just wasn't expecting Ezreal to get _closer_ to him, but the opportunity is there. Clumsily, Ezreal shoves at him with both his hands, buying time no matter how little.

It's enough for Sona to draw herself up to her etwahl, to slam her hands down on the strings in that discordant sound once more.

At first Ezreal thinks the harp-strings have snapped. A wire-thin light shoots from the etwahl to the masked man, pushing him back into a stagger just as he regains his balance.

As Sona steadies herself behind her etwahl, she strums her fingers across the strings, this time the sound of it harmonious. This time, the magic harp-strings wrap around him, pulling his arms to his side tight, lifting him a foot in the air.

His gun clatters to the floor, and Ezreal quickly kicks it further away.

Ezreal cannot know what recognition might play on the man's face when Sona signs to him. But he is silent, watching her, unresponsive.

"No more excuses," Ezreal translates, drawing himself upright and coming closer to Sona. As if it is natural, she reaches her hand out, brushing her fingers over the back of his hand lightly without looking at him.

"So you think she needs your voice," the man says.

"You're the one that needed it," Ezreal snaps. He wishes he had something more clever to say, wishes there was a way to stand up for Sona without standing up _for_ her.

"Go on then, hero," the masked man drawls. "Call the knights. Have me arrested. Let them see that you subjugated a threat with your magic."

Ezreal sees the threads of magic flicker. He grabs Sona's hand, and the light glows renewed; the man winces at its binding.

When he looks to Sona, her brow is furrowed with uncertainty. She turns to meet his eyes, and draws her hands back so she can speak.

_He's right that I have to let him go. As soon as I'm not binding him, he's going to escape._

"You don't know that," Ezreal says, somewhat indignant. "I can—"

There is a pound against the door.

The sound of it startles them, and both their eyes set on it apprehensively. Sona's fingers drift back to her etwahl as if in preparation. Even from the edge of his sight, he sees the way her shoulders tremble, the way her whole body tenses.

The sound comes again, louder this time. He sees the door bulge against a pressure.

If it is the knights, maybe he can pretend that her magic is his own. Maybe he can spin this lie, and they will be too stupid and naïve to the ways of magic that they will believe him.

With a third _bang_ , the door bursts open.

From the doorway, Cithria takes in the scene, magic and all, her faces contorted in fury.

" _You_ ," she spits, storming down the aisle. Her hand is on the hilt of her blade as she climbs the steps. She reaches Ezreal. Draws her sword. And uses it to point at the masked man, even as she glares at Ezreal. " _You_ should have told me what was going on."

"Surprise," Ezreal offers.

"I'm so sorry that I let this happen, Lady Buvelle," Cithria says to Sona, giving her a deep bow. "I should have paid more attention and been there for you to protect you. I've failed in my duties."

Sona shakes her head, signing rapidly.

"She says it's fine," Ezreal translates, because he knows Cithria won't understand otherwise.

Cithria sheathes her sword again, apparently only having drawn it for the dramatics. She crosses the stage, then disappears behind the curtain. Her voice drifts back to them from the shadows.

"No, I could lose rank over this. I was assigned to protect you and be by your side."

Ezreal glances to the masked man, still unreadable as ever, then to Sona. Sona exchanges a curious look with him.

"It would be doing me a huge favor if we could just lie and say I was with you, tonight," Cithria says, and as she returns, Ezreal realizes that she's brought a long rope from back-stage. "For my sake, if we could just let me take credit for this. That would be great. For me."

"So you want the glory, huh?" Ezreal teases. He watches as Cithria ties the masked man up. He sees the way she falters up close to the magic light, but he sees the way she steels herself and pushes past her nerves.

"Yeah," Cithria mutters, tying a knot and yanking it tight. "It's a pretty selfish request, I have to say."

 _It isn't,_ Sona is signing, her breathes still coming in shudders. _It isn't._

"Selfish," Ezreal echoes.

"Ezreal. Go back to the mansion. We'll be home soon," Cithria tells him. "Sona, go find the nearest knights. Bring them here to apprehend this _stalker_ that I've caught."

There is a long silence. Ezreal is almost surprised that the masked man does not interject, does not try to win the moment with a witticism. He does not even threaten to reveal Sona's secret. Maybe he is just biding his time and still thinks he can escape. But even when Sona's magic fades away, the rope seems to bind him tight enough.

"Okay," Ezreal murmurs.

Sona grabs his sleeve before he can turn.

 _Thank you,_ she says.

He can see the fear in her face, still. Not of the man, of a stalker, of a shooter who misunderstood her so wholly that he thought she wanted a voice. But of what Cithria has seen, of what Cithria is concealing for her.

She is always doing it to him, and so this time Ezreal does it to her; he reaches up to cup her cheeks in his hands.

She closes her eyes. The moment stretches as his pulse quickens. He realizes that he doesn't know what he was doing, and he realizes that even with mussed hair and stress on her face and rumpled clothing, Sona is and always will be the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

Ezreal stares at her for a self-indulgent moment longer, taking in her softly parted lips and the softness of her skin, and her long, dark eyelashes. Then squishes her cheeks, and calls out to Cithria, "Sona says thanks."

"We just established that I'm the one we're all doing a favor," Cithria calls back. She is tilting her head to look at him with such judgment on her face that Ezreal hurriedly pulls away from Sona.

 _I meant you,_ Sona begins, but Ezreal turns away quickly, pretending not to have read enough.

"I'll see you at home," he tells them over his shoulder.

Cithria's voice reminds Sona to go alert a knight, growing quieter behind him.

***

Somehow, the thought of Lestara does not crossed his mind the whole way back to her mansion.

But she is in front of him the moment he steps in through the front gate, fussing silently, with furtive glances in every direction as if there could be prying ears around every corner.

Inside, behind closed doors, she is terrifyingly tense. She is so petite that Ezreal had not thought he could be terrified of her, but there is something about her brittle appearance that makes him fear that she will implode or collapse or combust, or otherwise stress herself into physical pain. Like her skin is made of porcelain and just as delicate for it.

"Where is she?"

"At the theater," Ezreal answers, honestly.

A look of confusion crosses Lestara's face, like she was expecting a different answer.

Ezreal scans her face as if he could read it like hands, as if her furrowed brow could explain her thoughts to him. He waits for fractures, for chips, for the porcelain powder collapse.

"Cithria apprehended the stalker," Ezreal elaborates. "Easiest to get knights involved without an outsider there to have to deal with, so she sent me home ahead. And — probably to explain things to you, actually."

"Cithria did," Lestara repeats, as if desperate to believe this.

"She bound him," Ezreal ventures. "With rope."

"Cithria did," Lestara repeats once more.

"Sona did," Ezreal concedes, eyes slicing away for just a second. "But Cithria is taking responsibility for it."

"So she knows," Lestara murmurs.

"She knew about me and I was just a stranger." The understanding only washes over him as he hears himself explain it, his voice careful, "I don't think you need to worry about mageseekers showing up and taking Sona away from you."

Lestara takes in a deep breath, her whole body fragile as it expands and contracts.

Ezreal watches her for a long moment. The silence hangs in the air with the dark of the foyer, oppressive and heavy. After being out in the empty night streets, and after his adrenaline spiking so high and crashing back down, the room feels small. He feels trapped in it.

"No more excuses for a lockdown," Ezreal says, quiet.

Lestara's eyes sweep across the floor to avoid his. "Do you…"

She hesitates. Her bony fingers pull a silk shawl tighter around herself. White and gold, embroidered with stylized Demacian wings that drape over her shoulders like a protective barrier, like a shield.

"She talks to you," Lestara tries again, skirting what she really wants to say. "You're afflicted, too."

Ezreal does not admit to her that they have not spoken much about magic at all. He doesn't have the heart to criticize the word this time. He just nods.

In the silence, Lestara whispers, "Do you think she'll run away with the mages? Do you think that she'll leave me?"

"I don't know," Ezreal admits. He wishes he could say no. He wishes his mind did not submerge him in a sea of words Sona has written in distaste for this kingdom's nobility and her life among it. And is there any mage alive who would choose to live behind these suffocating walls?

No, he knows that there are.

"She's my family," Lestara says in a whisper. "There may still be people who think otherwise, but I…"

"You might have to let her go."

Lestara's face falls, looking at him with a hopelessness he is unaccustomed to.

He looks away again. "I mean, in the end it's her choice, right? You can't stop someone from leaving if that's what they want to do."

He only looks back to her because she finally turns the light on, letting the room spill over with pale yellow. He does not catch her expression before she's turned to face away from him, with a nod for him to follow her down the halls.

He does so, watching as she runs her fingers along the walls as if she is feeling her way along, even when she has turned on all the lights ahead.

She does not turn back to speak to him as they walk, and her voice barely reaches. "You've seen her magic."

"A little bit."

"Every night."

He catches himself from stumbling over his own feet.

"She isn't meant for war. For an uprising. She's an artist. A gentle soul."

"I don't think that artists or gentle souls have no place in wars," Ezreal points out. He does not disagree with the assessment of Sona. A mother would know best, after all. At least, he imagines they would. "Historically speaking, art is a huge part of revolutions."

The wings over her back are stretched thin as she pulls her shawl tight once more with one hand.

"I don't want her hurt."

"It's not up to you."

He knows that this is callous, that to push back is dangerous when this woman has been his host. But he has never been good at holding his tongue, least of all for matters he actually _cares_ about.

She sighs, and pushes the doors to the music room open. "You're right."

"The best you can do is talk to her about it. Not try to lock her up."

He stops in the doorway as Lestara crosses the room. She sits down at a large white piano, trimmed with gold as if all things are in Demacia. Her fingers press keys idly, testing the sounds and not creating music.

"I don't want her hurt," Lestara repeats, so thin behind the piano that she is forgettable.

"I don't either."

Her fingers ghost over the keys as time drags on and on, both their uncertainty overflowing, spilling, mixing on the floor in silence.

***

Cithria and Sona return home late in the evening. They both look weary, offering only quiet smiles and brief summaries of the knight's arrest.

Lestara leads them all to the music room, just as she had with Ezreal before. He trails after, unsure if he is still meant to, unsure if Cithria still wants to watch after him.

He cannot see the whole conversation between mother and daughter, both their backs to him. Only the slow loosening of golden wings, and tense shoulder-blades bared by Sona's open-back dress.

 _I want to travel,_ Sona says. _But not with them._

 _How far?_ Lestara asks.

Ezreal stops trying to read what he can in the space between them as they walk.

It's harder when they are no longer facing away. When they settle, side by side at the piano, and when Ezreal and Cithria stand across the room, both leaned against the wall like perched guardians.

 _I would never leave you,_ Sona says.

 _You could,_ Lestara answers. She mouths the words silently, maybe at a whisper that Ezreal simply can't hear from far away. She looks resigned, and exhausted by her own efforts, her own worries. _You can go wherever you wish. I can't cage you._

_A home is not a cage when the door is open._

_It has been._

Sona hesitates. Looks down to her hands as she moves them to hover over the keys. She pulls them back anyway; _It has been,_ she agrees, then puts them back.

Lestara's shoulders slump in guilt. She does not apologize properly. Maybe that's too much to expect from a parent. Instead she brings her hands back to the piano as well.

Ezreal doesn't know which of them starts playing.

He just knows that he can't look away, even when he sees Cithria turn to him partway through the song from the edge of his sight. He can't see their hands, and from listening to the melody can't discern when the transitions happen. He doesn't know who is playing which keys. He doesn't know anything except the song that seems to go on forever, and the way both their bodies sway together, side by side.

Each note is like a star falling, like a shooting star on the night of a meteor storm. Something burning in the distance, something that's been burning for a long time before it reached them and even then it is on the outskirts of their lives. Something beautiful and dangerous and wonderful and scary.

An off-key note startles him, then gets woven into the melody so quickly that he wonders if he was mistaken. Then there is another, course-corrected just as quickly.

Sona is laughing. A silent laugh, but one that shakes her shoulders and makes her eyes scrunch up as she bumps her shoulder into Lestara's.

"Oh, stop," Lestara says, and her voice is still fragile, still hiding behind the notes, but there is mirth inside it, too. "Always so rebellious — from the first day I taught you.."

He listens as the song devolves into increasing chaos; as Sona sabotages it more and more frequently and Lestara struggles to keep up. Cithria laughs beside him when she catches on, and he joins in.

When he leaves for his room, Cithria does not follow to keep watch over him.

***

All Ezreal remembers is laying down for bed before he is being woken up by a knock at the door.

When he opens it, Sona brushes by, holding her etwahl in her arms. He is still blinking sleep from his eyes as she sets it upright at the bedside.

Communicating through music may have worked for her and Lestara, but Ezreal knows already that no song she could play will do more than a conversation. Maybe she knows this, he thinks. Maybe this is because she has nothing new to say to him.

 _Your lullaby,_ she signs, when she is finished.

He raises an eyebrow. "You _woke me up_ to get me to sleep?"

Her lips pull thin, but any self-consciousness she had lasts only a second. Still frowning, she gives a slow nod.

 _I want you to remember the good that we can do,_ she says. _Not the harm._

He realizes that 'we' means herself and her etwahl. Pauses to let his brain catch up with her. Then, "What?"

_I don't want you to remember my affliction poorly._

"Like there's something wrong with defending yourself?"

She looks alarmed. _Not at all._

"Something wrong with more offensive magic, like mine?

Her brow furrows with increasing distress. _No._

Ezreal crosses his arms over his chest and knows that she must be tired; that he is being petulant and childish to pick a fight, now instead of going along with her whims. "Nothing about that changed anything. It doesn't change how I feel about you or about your magic or — whatever."

Her shoulders tense. There is something about her expression that strikes him as helpless.

 _I'm too old for you,_ she signs.

He winces despite himself.

After a pause, her shoulders heave with a sigh. She signs something that he doesn't understand, and only seems to realize when he squints at her hands in confusion.

_How I say your name._

She repeats the motion one more time. Then spells out, letter by letter: _comet._

"Why?"

She looks away and does not answer beyond a loose shrug.

He feels anxious. His hands clammy and his own whole face foreign to him. He comes to sit down on the edge of the bed, making sure to give Sona a wide berth as he passes. It's a waste of effort; she sits down beside him right away, so close that their hips touch where the bed dips, pulling them closer together.

 _It's sweet of you,_ Sona signs. _You're a very dear friend._

"We don't have to like — linger in the rejection stage. I got it."

This time Sona winces.

 _I really like playing with you,_ she signs. It's a cruel sentiment, even without malice. Ezreal is sure she intends it to be comforting.

"For real, I'm over it." He can hear how obvious the lie is in his own voice.

 _It's alarming to mean it,_ Sona says. _To want you._

He almost does not process the meaning of these words. Her expression is so impassive, so completely without emotion that he does not know what to make of it. But the words get into his brain, and it promptly stops working in entirety.

"Uh?"

She flusters abruptly and all at once. _Not like that,_ she insists, her ears turning red and hands moving fast. _Not like that._

He leans closer to her, vindictively amused that she leans backwards to keep respectable distance between them — and that her lips quirk upwards in amusement. A chase is something Ezreal is familiar with.

"How, then?"

 _For your words, and thoughts, and company,_ she says, and Ezreal thinks that this is sincerity. _For your friendship._

"Liar," he presses, leaning closer still. Enough that she struggles to lean away; she can't lean back on her arms without losing her voice. He almost feels bad, until he sees her turn her head away to laugh.

He sees the flicker of guilt on her face when she steals a look in his direction. Beyond the amusement, guilt.

He knows why, and doesn't know how to combat it. He flits through arguments in his head — the prince of her kingdom is rumored to be courting a girl his own age; their difference is the same. His mother was younger than his father. He _is_ an adult, albeit a young one. He knows better than to voice any of this.

Instead he just reiterates, "I love you. But that comes with freedom, so it — doesn't have to be anything."

She looks back to him, arching an eyebrow. Her smile strikes him as uncertain.

 _Freedom?_ she repeats.

He draws back from her, but does not miss that she follows the movement until they are sitting upright with their bodies curled towards each other. Like they are sharing a secret between them, something hidden behind a veil or a bed's canopy.

He thinks about Lestara, clinging to her love for her daughter so intensely, so unwisely.

Ezreal shrugs. "It's just… Not a cage. That's all." He forces a grin, and it isn't as difficult as he'd expected. "All I ask for is more letters, when I go home."

 _Letters,_ she signs, and leans closer until there is hardly an inch between them, until he is struggling to look between them to see her hands. _I would love to write to you again, between visits._

"Oh?" He smirks. "Visits, huh?"

 _For concerts,_ she signs, and playfully shoves his chest. _When I travel._

There is a momentary pause, both of them overly-conscious of the touch, both of them unsure of where to go next.

Ezreal reaches between them; takes her hands in his with a gentle grip for her to escape from with ease. She doesn't, and they sit, hands held warmly together in the tiny space between them.

Even without her music, the silence does not hollow out the fullness of his heart.

When he leans forward to kiss her, she does not draw back. When her hands finally slip from his, it is to drape her arms over his shoulders, her lips still soft and warm on his.

Her lips part against his; her head tilts just so. It feels easy and natural to press into her, to rest one hand on her hip as he had when they were dancing. He feels her fingers tap against the nape of his neck; hears her etwahl chime without being touched.

Music that sounds like comets, twinkling and sparkling. Music that rings in his head and in his heart for the rest of the night.

Music that rings in his head for his long journey home.

For his next expedition as he chases after treasures and trinkets.

It plays out in his heart as if he's chasing after slowly-falling comet trails, until finally — _finally_ — the next letter arrives, concert tickets spilling from the envelope as soon as he opens it.

***

_Hello, my love._

_What a trite thing to write, I hate this already._

_No, don't mind that. (Should I begin again?)_

_Dear Ezreal,_

**Author's Note:**

> do you ever hit a point writing something where you're like "I'm done writing this (emotionally)" and the fic is like "But you did not finish writing?"
> 
> but you push through so you can call it done and stop looking at it, and end up with. gestures. what is this. what is any of this.


End file.
